title: Development of the Japan Science and Technology Agency Index of Competence to Assess Functional Capacity in Older Adults: Conceptual Definitions and Preliminary Items.
abstract: Improvement in the health of older people and changes in their lifestyles necessitate a scale that can better measure their competence at a higher level. This study describes the development process of the Japan Science and Technology Agency Index of Competence (JST-IC) by (a) refining conceptual definitions and developing preliminary items and (b) examining the basic properties of the items. Participants were 1,253 septuagenarians (539 men and 714 women) living in communities, who were asked to judge whether they were independent via 88 items. To examine the basic properties of the preliminary items, five different analyses were conducted. Thirty-four items were considered as inappropriate (6 overlapped between the analyses): (a) 9 due to very high or low ratios of responders who answered "yes," (b) 4 due to gender or regional differences, (c) 5 due to their weak association with health status, (d) 9 due to low communalities in factor analysis, and (e) 13 due to redundancy of meaning with other items. Conceptual definitions and preliminary items were developed, and the basic properties of the items were examined to create the JST-IC. The next step would be to screen the remaining 54 items to create the final version of the scale.
authors.affiliation: Fukushima Medical University, Japan; Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, Japan; Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Hajime
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Iwasa
authors.affiliation: Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, Japan; Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Yukie
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Masui
authors.affiliation: Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, Japan; Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Hiroki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Inagaki
authors.affiliation: Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, Japan; Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Yuko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yoshida
authors.affiliation: Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, Japan; Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society, Tokyo, Japan; National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology, Obu, Japan.
authors.forename: Hiroyuki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Shimada
authors.affiliation: Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, Japan; Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Rika
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Otsuka
authors.affiliation: Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, Japan; Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Kazunori
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kikuchi
authors.affiliation: Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, Japan; Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Kumiko
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Nonaka
authors.affiliation: Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society, Tokyo, Japan; Tohoku Bunka Gakuen University, Sendai, Japan.
authors.forename: Hiroto
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yoshida
authors.affiliation: Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, Japan; Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Hideyo
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yoshida
authors.affiliation: Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, Japan; Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society, Tokyo, Japan; National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology, Obu, Japan.
authors.forename: Takao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Suzuki
keywords: community-dwelling older adults; competence; functional capacity