Lecturer Practitioner, Catherine McAuley School of Nursing & Midwifery, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland.
Int J Older People Nurs. 2007 Sep;2(3):204-12. doi: 10.1111/j.1748-3743.2007.00074.x.
Assessment of a patient's functional ability to perform activities of daily living is an essential part of nursing. Measuring the functional ability of older adults is a potent predictor of a patient's morbidity and hospital outcome. The information generated from assessment scales is only constructive if the information generated is clinically useful and scientifically reliable. The Katz activities of daily living and the Barthel Index are two of the oldest competing indices for assessing activities of daily living. The Katz activities of daily living and the Barthel Index evaluate a patient's function in terms of level of independence or dependence when performing certain activities required for daily living. This paper will compare their significance and usefulness to nursing practice of the older adult. As information is gathered and interpreted to complete these assessment scales, the relative merits in specific situations of these two oldest competing indices need to be considered to ensure their appropriateness and sensitivity. Often, with the use of assessment scales for activities of daily living, the results often tend to be subjective and lack a systematic approach. Subjective assessment of patients makes it difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of treatments, leading to bias and the misinterpretation of data. This may be critical in the care of older adults, where presenting problems are often complex and multi-dimensional. As assessment of functional ability has become more important to nursing practice, this paper will investigate the Katz activities of daily living and the Barthel Index for reliability and explore the variations that exist between the two indices. Although research on assessment scales has been ongoing since the work of Katz et al. (1963) there remains conceptual issues as to what constitutes activities of daily living and defining terminology associated with the measurement.
评估患者进行日常生活活动的功能能力是护理的重要组成部分。测量老年人的功能能力是预测患者发病率和医院结局的有力指标。只有当评估量表生成的信息具有临床意义且科学可靠时，这些信息才具有建设性。Katz 日常生活活动量表和 Barthel 指数是评估日常生活活动的两种最古老的竞争指数。Katz 日常生活活动量表和 Barthel 指数根据患者在进行日常生活所需的某些活动时的独立性或依赖性水平来评估患者的功能。本文将比较它们对老年患者护理实践的意义和实用性。在收集和解释这些评估量表的信息时，需要考虑这两个最古老的竞争指数在特定情况下的相对优点，以确保其适当性和敏感性。通常，在使用日常生活活动评估量表时，结果往往是主观的，缺乏系统的方法。对患者的主观评估使得难以评估治疗的效果，导致数据的偏差和误解。这在老年人的护理中可能是至关重要的，因为老年人的问题往往是复杂和多方面的。随着对功能能力评估对护理实践变得越来越重要，本文将研究 Katz 日常生活活动量表和 Barthel 指数的可靠性，并探讨这两个指数之间存在的差异。尽管自 Katz 等人（1963 年）的研究以来，对评估量表的研究一直在进行，但对于日常生活活动的构成以及与测量相关的术语的定义仍存在概念性问题。
