Abstract
Objective
Informal care is a significant component of the societal resource use and costs in dementia care. Thus it is fundamental that assessments of informal care are valid. Thus the aim was to analyse the validity of time estimates with the Resource Utilization in Dementia (RUD) instrument.
Design
Prospective observational study.
Setting
Community sample.
Participants
Fourteen married and cohabiting patient-caregiver pairs.
Measurements
Comparisons of estimates of caregiver time by recall with the RUD instrument, by diaries and by direct observation, with calculation of agreement statistics for recall vs. diary and recall vs. direct observation to assess accuracy of the time estimates derived from recall.
Results
The patients and their caregivers participated in 47 diaries and 30 observation sessions. The agreement between diaries and recall estimates was high for personal ADL (intra-class correlation (ICC) 0.93), supervision (ICC 0.87) and total time (ICC 0.91) and lower but acceptable for instrumental ADL (ICC 0.75). Regarding observation vs recall estimates, the corresponding figures were for personal ADL (ICC 0.81), for instrumental ADL (ICC 0.74), for supervision (ICC 0.78) and for total time (ICC 0.80).
Conclusion
The RUD instrument appears to accurately estimate the amount of informal care provided by caregivers to dementia patients
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Wimo A, Jonsson L, Winblad B. An Estimate of the Worldwide Prevalence and Direct Costs of Dementia in 2003. Dement Geriatr Cogn Disord. 2006 Jan 9;21(3):175–181.
Jonsson B, Jonsson L, Wimo A. Cost of dementia. In: May M, Sartorius N, editors. Dementia WPA Series Evidence and experience in Psychiatry. London: John Wiley & Son; 2000. p. 335–363.
Wimo A, Wetterholm AL, Mastey V, Winblad B. Evaluation of the resource utilization and caregiver time in Anti-dementia drug trials — a quantitative battery. In: Wimo A, Jonsson B, Karlsson G, Winblad B, editors. The Health Economis of dementia. London: John Wiley & Sons; 1998. p. 465–499.
Clipp EC, Moore MJ. Caregiver time use: an outcome measure in clinical trial research on Alzheimer's disease. Clin Pharmacol Ther. 1995 Aug;58(2):228–236.
Davis KL, Marin DB, Kane R, Patrick D, Peskind ER, Raskind MA, et al. The Caregiver Activity Survey (CAS): development and validation of a new measure for caregivers of persons with Alzheimer's disease. Int J Geriatr Psychiatry. 1997;12(10):978–988.
Feldman H, Gauthier S, Hecker J, Vellas B, Hux M, Xu Y, et al. Economic evaluation of donepezil in moderate to severe Alzheimer disease. Neurology. 2004 Aug 24;63(4):644–650.
Beecham J, Knapp M. Costing psychiatric interventions. In: Thornicroft G, editor. Measuring mental health needs. London: Gaskell; 2001. p. 200–224.
Wimo A, Winblad B, Engedal K, Soininen H, Verhey F, Waldemar G, et al. An economic evaluation of donepezil in mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease: results of a 1-year, double-blind, randomized trial. Dement Geriatr Cogn Disord. 2003;15(1):44–54.
Wimo A, Winblad B, Stöffler A, Wirth Y, Möbius HJ. Resource Utilization and Cost Analysis of Memantine in Patients with Moderate to Severe Alzheimer's Disease. Pharmacoeconomics. 2003;21(5):327–340.
Coduras A, Rabasa I, Frank A, Bermejo-Pareja F, Lopez-Pousa S, Lopez-Arrieta JM, et al. Prospective one-year cost-of-illness study in a cohort of patients with dementia of Alzheimer's disease type in Spain: the ECO study. J Alzheimers Dis. Jan; 19(2):601–615.
Suh GH, Knapp M, Kang CJ. The economic costs of dementia in Korea, 2002. Int J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2006 Aug;21(8):722–728.
Bostrom F, Jonsson L, Minthon L, Londos E. Patients with Lewy body dementia use more resources than those with Alzheimer's disease. Int J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2007 Aug;22(8):713–719.
Neubauer S, Holle R, Menn P, Grossfeld-Schmitz M, Graesel E. Measurement of informal care time in a study of patients with dementia. Int Psychogeriatr. 2008 Dec;20(6):1160–1176.
Mesterton J, Wimo A, By A, Langworth S, Winblad B, Jonsson L. Cross Sectional Observational Study on the Societal Costs of Alzheimer's Disease. Curr Alzheimer Res. 2009 Nov 26.
Wimo A, Winblad B. Resource utilisation in dementia: RUD Lite. Brain Aging. 2003;3:48–59.
Wimo A, Nordberg G. Validity and reliability of assessments of time Comparisons of direct observations and estimates of time by the use of the resource utilization in dementia (RUD)-instrument. Arch Gerontol Geriatr. 2006 Jun 12;44:71–81.
Folstein MF, Folstein SE, McHugh PR. “Mini-mental state”. A practical method for grading the cognitive state of patients for the clinician. J Psychiatr Res. 1975 Nov;12(3):189–198.
Katz S, Ford AB, Moskowitz RB, Jackson BA, Jaffe MW. A standardized measure of biological and psychosocial function. JAMA. 1963;185:914–919.
Lagergren M, Fratiglioni L, Hallberg IR, Berglund J, Elmstahl S, Hagberg B, et al. A longitudinal study integrating population, care and social services data. The Swedish National study on Aging and Care (SNAC). Aging Clin Exp Res. 2004 Apr;16(2):158–168.
van den Berg B, Spauwen P. Measurement of informal care: an empirical study into the valid measurement of time spent on informal caregiving. Health Econ. 2006 May;15(5):447–460.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Wimo, A., Jonsson, L. & Zbrozek, A. The resource utilization in dementia (RUD) instrument is valid for assessing informal care time in community-living patients with dementia. J Nutr Health Aging 14, 685–690 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12603-010-0316-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12603-010-0316-2