Abstract
The purpose of this study was to establish a simplified questionnaire test for evaluating the ability of daily living activity in elderly women. The subjects were 159 Korean elderly women, aged 60 to 91 years, all of whom were participants in an elderly school program managed by the Seoul City. Physical activities related to independence in daily living must be selected from various components. The first questionnaire test was designed to classify various activities of daily living. As a result, 50 items were considered available. The second questionnaire test was applied to extract subareas of daily living activities in elderly women. Degree of performance achieved in each physical activity was ranked on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 to 5. Factor analysis with Normal Varimax criterion was applied to the 50×50 correlation matrix. The 50 items were found to be condensed into 4 distinct factors that account for almost 60% of the total variance of the items included in the analysis. The extracted factors were interpreted as locomotion of whole body, manipulation of upper limb, manipulation of finger, and change of posture. Multiple regression analysis revealed that 4 items from each factor were suitable for the assessment of the ability of daily living activity. Therefore, sixteen items were selected from viewpoints of validity and reliability and were included in the simplified questionnaire test. In a cross-validation sample (n=220), high correlatoins (r>0.70) existed between the sum of the raw score of the sixteen test items and factor score. The developed questionnaire was considered useful for evaluating the ability of daily living activity in elderly women.
