Abstract
Purpose: The purpose of the present study is to develop a long-term care risk assessment scale for the elderly to identify young elderly individuals who are at a higher risk for requiring long-term care. Methods: Reexamine the items defined in earlier studies, a draft scale consisting of 8 concepts and 46 items was prepared. In order to determine the attributes and concurrent validity of the draft, a mail-in questionnaire survey was conducted using the following two groups of elderly individuals living in municipalities with populations between 30,000 and 300,000 : elderly individuals aged 65-74 years who had been certified as requiring support by the current Long-term care insurance system; and gender-matched elderly individuals in the same age group but with an age difference of within three years who did not require long-term care. Results : A total of 339 valid responses were analyzed (valid response rate : 38.3%). Based on correlated items, total correlations and factor analysis findings, a scale consisting of 7 factors and 28 items was obtained. The cumulative contribution ratio following factor extraction was 53.6%. The validity of the scale was mostly confirmed by a comparison of the scores between two groups and the correlation coefficient with the Japanese version of the EuroQOL scale. As to reliability, Cronbach's alpha coefficients was 0.887 and ρ coefficients in test-retest findings was 0.958 for the entire items, but some problems remain with the subscale items. Conclusions : While there are limitations in the reliability and validity of the subscale and in the range of use, the results suggested that individuals at a higher risk for requiring long-term care could be differentiated using all items.
