[Length of stay in institutionalised long-term care 1999-2011: a population-based study].

Background And Objective: From the perspective of welfare economics, institutionalised long-term care (ILTC) is expensive and thus requires key figures. This article provides the population-based mean length of stay in ILTC, which is a meaningful measure for monitoring purposes.

Method: The Sullivan method was applied to official statistics on population and long-term care between 1999 and 2011. This method splits up the life expectancy at birth into one part in and one part out of ILTC. The part in ILTC can be interpreted as length of stay.

Results: In 2011, males in Germany experienced 5.5 months in ILTC, females 14.4 months. In 1999, the length of stay was 3.8 and 11.8 months, respectively. Thus, the length of stay in ILTC has increased over time. However, the increase regarding women stopped in 2007. Furthermore, the onset of ILTC has been protracted. In 2011, the mean age at the start of ILTC was 77.6 years (males) and 81.7 years (females). In 1999 the mean age was 74.5 years (males) and 79.9 years (females). In 2011, males spent 0.6% of their life expectancy in ILTC, females 1.4%. In 1999, this share was 0.4% (males) and 1.2% (females).

Conclusions: The utilisation of ILTC needs to be monitored by meaningful key figures over time. The length of stay, as proposed here, provides information on life expectancy and ILTC prevalence collapsed into one measure. This article reports the length of stay and substantiates its increase over time (in women, the increase ended in 2007). It is recommended to regularly update the time series by using official statistics.