Aim The purpose of the present study was to identify the sleep quality, depression, and life satisfaction between nursing home and long‐term care hospital residents. Methods Data was collected through a structured questionnaire survey of 61 nursing home residents and 74 long‐term care hospital residents. Descriptive statistics, t‐test, χ2‐test, anova, Pearson's correlation were used to analyze the data. Results The residents living in a nursing home showed higher subjective health status and sleep quality than long‐term care hospital residents. Depression did not show a significant difference between them. However, there was a significant difference in depression score by subjective health status. Sleep quality and depression showed a significant negative correlation for both residents. In terms of depression and life satisfaction, nursing home residents showed a significant negative correlation, and long‐term care hospital residents showed a significant positive correlation. Conclusions These results show that environmental management is essential to enhance sleep quality, thus depression and subjective health status will be improved. Geriatr Gerontol Int 2017; 17: 142–149.