Development of Short Screening Questionnaire for the Frail Elderly

Abstract

As Japan tries to balance the volume of long term care for the aged and its financing by promoting the preventive activities for slightly frail elderly, a simple case finding instrument is needed in order to implement really effective programs. For this purpose, the MHLW has introduced a 25 items questionnaire for case finding. However, this instrument is considered inappropriate because of its low sensitivity. In order to improve the situation, we have developed an 8 items' simple questionnaire, so called Quick 8. According to the ROC analysis based on the data of 289 aged who received the secondary in-depth assessment, It seems the criteria "more than equal 4 (sensitivity=1.00 and specificity =0.714)" is appropriate as threshold. The effectiveness and validity of this new instrument must be examined by larger scale of field studies in future.