[Development of the comprehensive geriatric assessment scale for Chinese elderly].
OBJECTIVE
To establish a comprehensive geriatric assessment scale which fit the situations of Chinese old people most, and to provide an evaluation tool for the proposal and intervention of functional health problems for the elderly.


METHODS
The comprehensive geriatric assessment scale was produced by Delphi method combing with Chinese cultural background, some methods such as literature review and experts evaluation were conducted. The manuscript of this questionnaire was developed through Delphi and pre-experiment. Then the manuscript questionnaires were used among 300 old people, to analyze and assess the reliability, validity and reactivity.


RESULTS
The experiment analysis demonstrated that the total Cronbach alpha coefficient was 0. 909 and that of each index ranged from 0.718-0.960, most of the dimension-related coefficients were over 0.5. The construct validity was validated by factor analysis and the cumulative contribution rate was up to 76.88%. Results of non-parametric test on reactivity showed that the differences of total scores and each dimension' scores and substitute scores between the elderly from different institutions were statistically significant (P < 0.01).


CONCLUSIONS
The comprehensive geriatric assessment scale owns a reasonable reliability, validity and reactivity, and this scale can be used as an evaluation instrument for the finding and intervention of the elder's health problems.
Department of Gerontology, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, China.
Xiu-Ying
XY
Hu
Na
N
Long
Lin-Na
LN
Wu
Ling
L
Yang
Qian
Q
Chen
Zuo-Yan
ZY
Liu
Xue-Li
XL
Chun
Yan
Y
Chen
Heng
H
Wang
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002681:China; D003697:Delphi Technique; D005260:Female; D015577:Geriatric Assessment / Q000379:methods*; D006299:Health Services for the Aged / Q000458:organization & administration; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*