Clinical and psychosocial variables associated with different types of behaviour problem in new nursing home admissions

The behaviour problems of 451 subjects at 2 weeks after admission to eight nursing homes were recorded on the Psychogeriatric Dependency Rating Scale. Factor analysis extracted four types of behaviour problem : antisocial behaviour, motor activity, communication problems and demands. Associations between the four types of behaviour problems and demographic, psychiatric, psychosocial and physical variables were examined. Multiple linear regression revealed that the four behaviour problem factors were associated with different clinical variables and possibly different aetiologies. However, only 20% or less of the variance in behaviour problems could be explained by variables examined in the study.