The Gerontologist, Vol 37, Issue 2 182-191, Copyright © 1997 by The Gerontological Society of America

ARTICLES

Evaluation of a self-report screening instrument to predict frailty outcomes in aging populations

KK Brody, RE Johnson and L Douglas Ried
Center for Health Research, Portland, Oregon 97227-1098, USA.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the utility of a self- report screening instrument, the Health Status Form (HSF), to predict elderly members at risk of frailty in the subsequent year. The predictive ability of self-report HSF data was also compared to the predictive ability of inpatient discharges and pharmacy dispensings from administrative utilization databases. Four HSF variables best predicted elderly members at risk of frailty: (a) age, (b) indicating that health conditions interfered with daily activities, (c) needing or receiving assistance from another person for bathing, and (d) needing or receiving assistance from another person for taking medications. The predictive model yielded sensitivity 50.7%, specificity 97.8%, and correctly classified 90.9% of the population. Self-report population- based screening is a reliable method for predicting elderly members at risk of frailty in the coming year. Further studies should test a new brief instrument composed of portions of validated measures as a stand alone screener to select frail members for care management purposes.

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