Construct validity of the Frenchay Activities Index for community-dwelling elderly in Japan.

Full Abstract

Many researchers have developed various measures to evaluate the functional status of community-dwelling elderly. The Frenchay Activities Index (FAI) was developed to measure instrumental activities of daily living in stroke populations. The FAI has undergone the most intensive evaluation, but its factor structure has not been examined in Japan. The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the construct validity of the FAI for non-stroke community-dwelling elderly in Japan. The study subjects were 1,323 randomly selected community older residents in Hojo city, Ehime prefecture, the southern part of Japan. In order to investigate the construct validation, we performed factor analyses, i.e., exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. Furthermore, we examined the influences of age and gender on the FAI constructs. In the results, the FAI had a two-factor structure consisting of domestic chores, including washing clothes and preparing meals, and work and leisure, including gardening, driving and outings. Younger age was significantly related to increased performance on both factors. In addition, relative to females, males had a lower performance on the domestic chores and a greater performance on the work and leisure. These results suggest that the FAI satisfies the construct validity in the Japanese community-dwelling elderly. The FAI and its two factors provide important and clinically valuable information for understanding the patterns of functional status in the Japanese community-dwelling elderly.

Learn Faster Today Improve your study skills

Author information

Author/s: Han, Chang-Wan (CW); Yajima, Yuki (Y); Nakajima, Kazuo (K); Lee, Eun-Joo (EJ); Meguro, Makiko (M); Kohzuki, Masahiro (M);

Affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine and Rehabilitation Science, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan.

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Validation Studies

Journal: The Tohoku journal of experimental medicine (Tohoku J Exp Med), published in Japan. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2006-Oct; vol 210 (issue 2) : pp 99-107

Dates: Created 2006/10/06; Completed 2006/12/22; Revised 2007/11/15;

PMID: 17023763, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

External Links for this article (including full text providers, if available):

Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.

This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.

MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Female
Humans
Japan
Male
Sex Factors
Stroke

These are the highest related articles currently in the database:

See 100+ related articles.