Nursing homes with high rates of aides calling off have lower quality ratings, a recent report finds.

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh looked at data for around 4,000 nursing homes, zeroing in on staffing characteristics and physical restraint use, catheter use, pain management and pressure ulcers. They found high levels of nurse aide absenteeism were associated with poor performance on all four quality indicators.

The average rate of absenteeism in a week was 9.2%.  Findings were published in The Gerontologist  in January.