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Comparison of the measurement properties of the Functional Independence and Difficulty Scale with the Barthel Index in community-dwelling elderly people in Japan

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Abstract

Background

The new Functional Independence and Difficulty Scale (FIDS) is a tool for assessing the performance of basic activities of daily living (BADL). Because many BADL measures already exist, it is important to know whether FIDS can offer added benefit over the existing measures.

Aims

This study compared measurement properties between the FIDS and a representative BADL assessment tool, the Barthel Index (BI).

Methods

Recruitment of the participants was done on the basis of convenience sampling. Participants were community-dwelling elderly Japanese subjects (n = 314; age ≥65 years) divided into a healthy elderly group [n = 225; subjects not using long-term care insurance (LTCI) services] and frail elderly group (n = 89; subjects using LTCI services). For each group, ceiling effect (percent participation with the maximum score) was calculated, and it was compared between the two scales. Associations between the FIDS, BI and Medical Outcomes Study Short Form 8 Health Survey (SF-8) were evaluated by Spearman correlation coefficient and partial correlations. Partial correlations coefficients to SF-8 were compared between the two scales.

Results

FIDS showed a relatively small ceiling effect compared to the BI. Compared to the BI, FIDS showed a significant positive partial correlation with the broader aspect of the SF-8 subscales, but the strength of correlation between FIDS and SF-8 was weak to negligible.

Conclusions

The FIDS might be less affected by ceiling effect than the BI. Additional studies using a sufficient number of probability samples are needed to clarify whether FIDS has any benefit over BI in terms of correlations with the SF-8.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are very grateful to all of the subjects who participated in our study.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Doctoral Course of Gerontology, Graduate School of Gerontology, J. F. Oberlin University, 3758 Tokiwa-machi, Machida-shi, Tokyo, 194-0294, Japan

    Takashi Saito

  2. Graduate School of Health Sciences, Kobe University, Kobe, Japan

    Kazuhiro P. Izawa

  3. Department of Physical Therapy, Tokyo College of Allied Medicine, Tokyo, Japan

    Nobuko Matsui

  4. Department of Rehabilitation, Visiting Nursing and Rehabilitation Network, Kanagawa, Japan

    Kenji Arai, Makoto Ando, Kazuhiro Morimoto, Naoki Fujita, Yuki Takahashi & Moe Kawazoe

  5. Graduate School of Gerontology, J. F. Oberlin University, Tokyo, Japan

    Shuichiro Watanabe

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  1. Takashi Saito
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  2. Kazuhiro P. Izawa
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  3. Nobuko Matsui
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Takashi Saito.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The study protocol was approved by the ethics Committee of J. F. Oberlin University (approval no. 13055).

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Saito, T., Izawa, K.P., Matsui, N. et al. Comparison of the measurement properties of the Functional Independence and Difficulty Scale with the Barthel Index in community-dwelling elderly people in Japan. Aging Clin Exp Res 29, 273–281 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40520-016-0558-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40520-016-0558-x

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