Original articleLife-Space Assessment and Physical Activity Scale for the Elderly: Validity of Proxy Informant Responses
Section snippets
Design and participants
The study used a cross-sectional design in which dyads formed by a community-dwelling older adult and his or her close companion were recruited as a sample of convenience. Older adult participants were aged at least 60 years and identified their companion as “someone who they have spent at least 7 hours per week with during the last month.” Study candidates were recruited by advertisement and word of mouth. In promoting the study (eg, at local retirement communities), every effort was made to
Results
Forty-five dyads were screened initially. None were rejected because of language, cognitive, or physical limitations. Four dyads were unable to participate in data collection because of scheduling conflicts. Data from 1 dyad were incomplete and therefore not included in the analysis.
The final sample contained 22 women and 18 older men (mean age ± SD, 80.7±7.5y). Mean gait speed ± SD was 0.82±0.26m/s. Companions included 33 women and 7 men (mean age ± SD, 69.2±14.4y). Two companions did not
Agreement
Consistent with previous studies of proxy agreement on measures of physical function,6, 7, 8, 9 our hypothesis that older adults and their familiar companions would provide similar responses on each survey was generally supported. At a group level, there was no statistical difference for either instrument between mean older adult and mean companion scores, their standardized mean difference was very small,17 and older adult scores were strongly and significantly associated with companion
Conclusions
Older adults and their familiar companions collectively provided similar responses on the LSA and PASE instruments. Nonetheless, agreement within individual older adult-companion dyads varied enough to warrant recommendations for thoughtful consideration of each instrument in the collection of proxy responses. Both instruments show promise for collecting community-level clinical outcomes in circumstances when an acutely ill, hospitalized older adult is unable to provide information about his or
Suppliers
- a.
New England Research Institute, 9 Galen St, Watertown, MA 02472.
- b.
SPSS, Inc, 233 S Wacker Dr, 11th Fl, Chicago, IL 60606.
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Sponsored by the Department of Physical Therapy of the University of New England, Portland, ME.
Disclosures: None.