Planning Home Care for Elderly Patients with Major Depressive Disorder: Limits of Diagnosis-Based Critical Paths

Abstract

Planning for elderly patients with multiple problems is an important issue facing home care agencies today. Purposes of this descriptive study were to determine variables for predicting resource use and outcomes and to define a critical path for psychiatric home care patients with major depression. A medical record review and an established system for coding home care patient problems and nursing interventions were employed. This method did not provide sufficiently distinct parameters for critical path formation. A significant association was found between intensity of nursing services and patient outcome. This finding documents the link between nursing services and patient outcomes.