Nineteen percent of long-term care nursing aides who were found guilty of on-the-job abuse, neglect, or property theft in 2010 had prior criminal convictions, a federal report revealed this week.

An Affordable Care Act-mandated analysis of skilled nursing facility background checks for nursing aides found that, out of the 1,611 nursing aides charged with abuse, neglect, or property theft in 2010, 300 had at least one prior criminal convictions, according to a report released by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General Tuesday.

The most common prior conviction (53%) was for crimes such as burglary, shoplifting and writing bad checks. Additionally, “nurse aides with substantiated findings of either abuse or neglect were 3.2 times more likely to have a conviction of crime against persons than nurse aides with substantiated findings of misappropriation,” the report stated.

One reason for the mandated report is to assess the ability of the background check program to reduce the number of incidents of neglect, abuse and misappropriation of resident property. The report contained no recommendations by the OIG.

Click here to read the full report.