Hébert R, Bravo G, Korner-Bitensky N, Voyer L
Centre de recherche en gérontologie et geriatrie, Hôpital d'Youville, Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada.
Age Ageing. 1996 Mar;25(2):159-67. doi: 10.1093/ageing/25.2.159.
Screening elderly individuals who are at risk of functional decline in the community is essential in order to implement effective programmes of assessment and surveillance in a context of secondary prevention. The postal questionnaire technique consists of sending a simple questionnaire to all elderly individuals living in a defined area in order to identify those who are at risk. The objective of this study was to develop a postal questionnaire and to test its capacity to predict functional decline in community-dwelling elderly people. A 21-item postal questionnaire was sent with a birthday card to a representative sample of community-dwelling individuals over the age of 75 years (n = 842). One month after sending the questionnaire, all subjects were contacted by a nurse for an in-home interview (n = 655) that included assessment of functional autonomy. One year later, the subjects (n = 607) were reassessed by the same nurse. Of the eligible subjects, 87.4% returned the postal questionnaire. During the year following the completion of the postal questionnaire, 43 subjects died, 13 were institutionalized and 109 had experienced a significant decrease on the autonomy scale, for a total annual occurrence of functional decline of 27.2%. Age and 14 of the 21 items of the questionnaire were associated with a significant relative risk of functional decline. The relative risk associated with not responding to the questionnaire was 2.1. A stepwise logistic regression analysis showed that six items were independent predictors of functional decline. This 6-item Sherbrooke Postal Questionnaire identifies as positive 56% of the population with 75% sensitivity and 52% specificity. We conclude that a postal questionnaire is a feasible and valid technique for screening elderly individuals at risk for functional decline.
在社区中筛查有功能衰退风险的老年人对于在二级预防背景下实施有效的评估和监测计划至关重要。邮寄问卷调查技术是向居住在特定区域的所有老年人发送一份简单问卷，以识别那些有风险的人。本研究的目的是开发一份邮寄问卷，并测试其预测社区居住老年人功能衰退的能力。一份包含21个条目的邮寄问卷随生日贺卡一起寄给了年龄在75岁以上的社区居住个体的代表性样本（n = 842）。在发送问卷一个月后，一名护士联系了所有受试者进行家访（n = 655），其中包括对功能自主性的评估。一年后，同一名护士对受试者（n = 607）进行了重新评估。在符合条件的受试者中，87.4% 返回了邮寄问卷。在完成邮寄问卷后的一年中，43名受试者死亡，13名被送进了养老院，109名在自主性量表上有显著下降，功能衰退的年总发生率为27.2%。年龄以及问卷21个条目中的14个与功能衰退的显著相对风险相关。未回复问卷的相对风险为2.1。逐步逻辑回归分析表明，6个条目是功能衰退的独立预测因素。这份6个条目的舍布鲁克邮寄问卷识别出了56% 的有功能衰退风险人群，敏感性为75%，特异性为52%。我们得出结论，邮寄问卷是筛查有功能衰退风险老年人的一种可行且有效的技术。
