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Objectives This study was designed to evaluate the effect of rehabilitation in preventing decreased functional status (FS) after community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) in elderly patients.Design This was a retrospective observational study.Setting Multicentre study was conducted in two medical facilities from January 2016 to December 2018.Participants Hospitalised patients with CAP aged over 64 years were enrolled. FS was assessed by the Barthel Index (BI) (range, 0–100, in 5-point increments) at admission and before discharge and graded into three categories: independent, BI 80–100; semidependent, BI 30–75; and dependent, BI 0–25. Multivariable analysis of factors contributing to decreased FS was conducted with two groups: with a decrease of at least one category (decreased group) or without a decrease of category (maintained group).Primary and secondary outcome measures The primary outcome was the effect of rehabilitation in preventing decreased FS. The secondary outcomes were factors associated with decreased FS.Results The maintained and decreased groups included 400 and 138 patients, respectively. A high frequency of rehabilitation therapy was observed in the decreased group (189 (47.3%) vs 104 (75.4%); p<0.001). Multivariable analysis showed that the factors affecting FS were aspiration pneumonia, Pneumonia Severity Index (PSI) category V, length of stay and age (OR 2.66, 95% CI 1.58 to 4.49; OR 1.92, 95% CI 1.29 to 3.44; OR 1.05, 95% CI 1.04 to 1.07; and OR 1.05, 95% CI 1.02 to 1.09, respectively). After adjusting for factors contributing to decreased FS, rehabilitation showed a limited effect in preventing decreased FS in 166 matched pairs by McNemar’s test (p=0.327).Conclusions Aspiration and PSI played important roles in reducing FS. The effect of rehabilitation remains unclear in CAP.Trial registration number UMIN000046362.