2.4. Response rates
As Fig. 1 shows, of the 653 originally mailed, 253
(38.7%) nursing homes returned with valid responses. Tonon-respondents, the questionnaire was sent again by fax,
to which an additional 118 (29.5%) responded. Thus, 371
responded in total (56.8%). The second survey of residents
who had died was limited to the 253 nursing homes that
had responded to the mail survey. Individual data from
a total of 1160 residents who had been discharged with
death as a reason was obtained from 241 facilities (12 nursing
homes responded that they had no discharges due to
death). The 241 facilities represented 36.9% of the original
sample. Of the 1160 residents, the two who had died at
home were excluded, so the number analyzed was 1158
(none had been transferred to other facility types).