Objectives: Rehabilitation plays a vital role in the mitigation and improvement of functional limitations associated with aging and chronic conditions. Moderating factors such as sex, age, the medical diagnosis, and rehabilitation timing for admission status, as well as the expected change related to inpatient rehabilitation, are examined to provide a valid basis for the routine assessment of the quality of medical outcomes. Design: An observational study was carried out, placing a focus on general and disease-specific health measurements, to assess representative results of multidisciplinary inpatient rehabilitation. Aspects that were possibly confounding and introduced bias were controlled based on data from a quasiexperimental (waiting) control group. Measures: Existing data or general health indicators were extracted from medical records. The indicators included blood pressure, resting heart rate, self-assessed health, and pain, as well as more diseasespecific indicators of physical function and performance (eg, activities of daily living, walking tests, blood lipids). These are used to identify moderating factors related to health outcomes. Setting and Participants: A standardized collection of routine data from 16,966 patients [61.5 AE 12.5 years; 7871 (46%) women, 9095 (54%) men] with different medical diagnoses before and after rehabilitation were summarized using a descriptive evaluation in terms of a content and factor analysis. Results: Without rehabilitation, general health indicators did not improve independently and remained stable at best [odds ratio (OR) ¼ 0.74], whereas disease-specific indicators improved noticeably after surgery (OR ¼ 3.20). Inpatient rehabilitation was shown to reduce the risk factors associated with certain lifestyles, optimize organ function, and improve well-being in most patients (>70%; cutoff: z-difference >0.20), with a standardized mean difference (SMD) seen in overall medical quality outcome of À0.48 AE 0.37 [pre-vs postrehabilitation: h p 2 ¼ 0.622; d Cohen ¼ À1.22; 95% confidence interval (95% CI) À1.24 to À1.19]. The baseline medical values obtained at the beginning of rehabilitation were influenced by indication, age, and sex (all P < .001); however, these factors have less significant effects on improvements in general health indicators (h p 2 < 0.01). According to the disease-specific results, the greatest improvements were found in older patients (SMD for patients >60 vs 60 years: 95% CI 0.08e0.11) and during the early rehabilitation stage (h p 2 ¼ 0.063).
