Oulu Patient Classification instrument within primary health care.
As patients have become older their care needs have increased, and this has consequences for the working conditions within primary health care.


OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to evaluate, whether the OPC instrument, which has been developed for hospital care, is valid and useful within primary healthcare for older people.


METHODS
Reliability and validity testing of the OPC instrument was carried out at a health care centre in Eastern Finland spring 2004. A total number of 92 questionnaires were handed out, and the response rate was 67% (n=61) in order to test the validity. The inter-rater reliability was tested through parallel classification. A total number of 860 patient's were classified; in total 1722 classifications ware done. Cohens Kappa was chosen as the measurement for the consensus between the nurses' classification.


RESULTS
The consensus of the NI scores in total (OPC points) was 71%. The consensus measured with Kappa (k) showed a strong (0.65) consensus degree.


CONCLUSIONS
It can be said that the OPC instrument achieved a high enough reliability and validity in order to be seen as a reliable and useful instrument to measure the NCI within primary healthcare for the elderly.


CONCLUSIONS
The OPC instrument can be seen as providing a fairly comprehensive view of the patient's caring needs, without claiming to be covering everything.
Frilund
Marianne
M
Yrkeshögskolan Novia University of Applied Sciences, Vaasa, Finland. marianne.frilund@novia.fi
Fagerström
Lisbeth
L
D000368:Aged; D005387:Finland; D005851:Geriatric Nursing / Q000145:classification* / Q000458:organization & administration; D006801:Humans; D011320:Primary Health Care; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*