Helping and hurting: Predictors of maltreatment of patients in nursing homes

Surveyed 577 nurses and nursing aides working in 31 long-term care facilities to identify predictors of maltreatment of patients by staff. Three sets of variables were investigated as predictors of physical and psychological abuse: institutional characteristics, staff characteristics, and the situational characteristics. Logistic regression analysis revealed that situational characteristics were the best predictors of patient maltreatment. In particular, staff burnout and level of staff–patient conflict were strongly related to engaging in abuse of patients.