Kirsten Corazzini, associate professor; Roy Thompson, PhD student; and Jing Wang, PhD student; recently published an article entitled "Advancing Long-Term Care Science Through Using Common Data Elements: Candidate Measures for Care Outcomes of Personhood, Well-Being, and Quality of Life" in Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine. Co-authors include David Edvardsson of Umea University and La Trobe University; Rebecca Baxgter of Umea University; Laura Corneliusson of Umea University; Ruth Anderson of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Anna Beeber of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Paulo Villas Boas of Sao Paulo State University; Adam Gordon of University of Nottingham; Barbara Hanratty of Newcastle University; Alessandro Jacinto of Sao Paulo State University; Michael Lepore of RTI International; Angela Leung of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University; Katherine McGilton of Toronto Rehabilitation Institute; Julienne Meyer of the University of London; Jos Schols of Maastricht University; Lindsay Schwartz of American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living; Victoria Shepherd of Cardiff University; Anders Skoldunger of Karolinska Institutet; Mark Toles of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Patrick Wachholz of Sao Paulo State University; Bei Wu of New York University an Franziska Zuniga of University of Basel. 

Abstract

To support the development of internationally comparable common data elements (CDEs) that can be used to measure essential aspects of long-term care (LTC) across low-, middle-, and high-income countries, a group of researchers in medicine, nursing, behavioral, and social sciences from 21 different countries have joined forces and launched the Worldwide Elements to Harmonize Research in LTC Living Environments (WE-THRIVE) initiative. This initiative aims to develop a common data infrastructure for international use across the domains of organizational context, workforce and staffing, person-centered care, and care outcomes, as these are critical to LTC quality, experiences, and outcomes. This article reports measurement recommendations for the care outcomes domain, focusing on previously prioritized care outcomes concepts of well-being, quality of life (QoL), and personhood for residents in LTC. Through literature review and expert ranking, we recommend nine measures of well-being, QoL, and personhood, as a basis for developing CDEs for long-term care outcomes across countries. Data in LTC have often included deficit-oriented measures; while important, reductions do not necessarily mean that residents are concurrently experiencing well-being. Enhancing measurement efforts with the inclusion of these positive LTC outcomes across countries would facilitate international LTC research and align with global shifts toward healthy aging and person-centered LTC models.