Table 3.

Associations between psychotropic medication use and quality of life, cognitive function and behaviour

	Psychotropic medication, β (SE), P value	Increasing number of psychotropic medications β (SE), P value	Antipsychotic medication, β (SE), P value	Antidepressant medication, β (SE), P value	Benzodiazepine medication, β (SE), P value
Quality of life
DEMQOL proxy scores (n = 535)	−0.020 (0.013), 0.10	−0.012 (0.006), 0.04	− 0.030 (0.014), 0.03	− 0.018 (0.011), 0.11	− 0.008 (0.013), 0.53
DEMQOL scores of the residents (n = 228)	− 0.024 (0.017), 0.16	− 0.009 (0.009), 0.32	−0.040 (0.025), 0.11	− 0.009 (0.017), 0.61	−0.016 (0.018), 0.37
EQ-5D-5L scores (resident or proxy) (n = 531)	−0.018 (0.023), 0.44	−0.024 (0.011), 0.03	− 0.031 (0.026), 0.22	0.003 (0.021), 0.88	− 0.059 (0.024), 0.01
Behaviour
NPI (n = 534)	1.571 (0.506), 0.002	1.072 (0.229), < 0.001	2.525 (0.541), < 0.001	0.495 (0.463), 0.29	1.443 (0.514), 0.005
Cognitive function
PASCog (n = 537)	0.979 (0.577), 0.09	0.752 (0.261), 0.004	2.650 (0.584), < 0.001	−0.401 (0.499), 0.42	−0.136 (0.560), 0.81

The reference for prescribed one or more psychotropic medications is being prescribed no psychotropic medications. The number of psychotropic medications was analysed as a continuous score. The models are adjusted for facility-level confounding factors: model of care, location, number of direct care hours, facility cost and size of facility and resident-level characteristics: age, sex, marital status, PAS-Cog scores (except where the outcome is PASCog scores), number of co-morbid conditions, NPI scores (except where the outcome is NPI scores), social ties and Barthel Index

Abbreviations: DEMQOL Dementia quality of life questionnaire, EQ-5D-5L EuroQol five dimensions questionnaire, NPI neuropsychiatric inventory, PASCog Psychogeriatric Assessment Scales – Cognition