Health and social factors associated with a delayed discharge amongst inpatients in acute geriatric wards: A retrospective observational study.

The present results are consistent with previous reports that delayed discharges in older hospitalized patients are mainly related to new formal social care requirements in survivors of acute illness. Frailty was an independent risk factor for delay, but its effect might have been confounded by the unmeasured variable of informal care requirements. Our operational definition of delayed discharge does not mirror the legal definition of delayed transfer of care in England, and the results are not externally valid. Geriatr Gerontol Int 2018; 18: 530-537.