ObjectivesTo develop and validate our Fracture Risk Scale (FRS) over a 1-year time period, using the long-term care (LTC) Resident Assessment Instrument Minimum Data Set Version 2.0 (RAI-MDS 2.0).DesignA retrospective cohort study.SettingLTC homes in Ontario, Canada.ParticipantsOlder adults who were admitted to LTC and received a RAI-MDS 2.0 admission assessment between 2006 and 2010.ResultsA total of 29 848 LTC residents were enrolled in the study. Of these 22 386 were included in the derivation dataset and 7462 individual were included in the validation dataset. Approximately 2/3 of the entire sample were women and 45% were 85 years of age or older. A total of 1553 (5.2%) fractures were reported over the 1-year time period. Of these, 959 (61.8%) were hip fractures. Following a hip fracture, 6.3% of individuals died in the emergency department or as an inpatient admission and did not return to their LTC home. Using decision tree analysis, our final outcome scale had eight risk levels of differentiation. The percentage of individuals with a hip fracture ranged from 0.6% (lowest risk level) to 12.6% (highest risk level). The area under the curve of the outcome scale was similar for the derivation (0.67) and validation (0.69) samples, and the scale exhibited a good level of consistency.ConclusionsOur FRS predicts hip fracture over a 1-year time period and should be used as an aid to support clinical decisions in the care planning of LTC residents. Future research should focus on the transformation of our scale to a Clinical Assessment Protocol and to assess the FRS in other healthcare settings.

BackgroundFrail older adults living in long term care (LTC) homes have a high fracture risk, which can result in reduced quality of life, pain and death. The Fracture Risk Scale (FRS) was designed for fracture risk assessment in LTC, to optimize targeting of services in those at highest risk. This study aims to examine the construct validity and discriminative properties of the FRS in three Canadian provinces at 1-year follow up.MethodsLTC residents were included if they were: 1) Adults admitted to LTC homes in Ontario (ON), British Columbia (BC) and Manitoba (MB) Canada; and 2) Received a Resident Assessment Instrument Minimum Data Set Version 2.0. After admission to LTC, one-year hip fracture risk was evaluated for all the included residents using the FRS (an eight-level risk scale, level 8 represents the highest fracture risk). Multiple logistic regressions were used to determine the differences in incident hip or all clinical fractures across the provinces and FRS risk levels. We examined the differences in incident hip or all clinical fracture for each FRS level across the three provinces (adjusted for age, BMI, gender, fallers and previous fractures). We used the C-statistic to assess the discriminative properties of the FRS for each province.ResultsDescriptive statistics on the LTC populations in ON (n = 29,848), BC (n = 3129), and MB (n = 2293) are: mean (SD) age 82 (10), 83 (10), and 84 (9), gender (female %) 66, 64, and 70% respectively. The incident hip fractures and all clinical fractures for FRS risk level were similar among the three provinces and ranged from 0.5 to 19.2% and 1 to 19.2% respectively. The overall discriminative properties of the FRS were similar between ON (C-statistic = 0.673), BC (C-statistic = 0.644) and MB (C-statistic = 0.649) samples.ConclusionFRS is a valid tool for identifying LTC residents at different risk levels for hip or all clinical fractures in three provinces. Having a fracture risk assessment tool that is tailored to the LTC context and embedded within the routine clinical assessment may have significant implications for policy, service delivery and care planning, and may improve care for LTC residents across Canada.