Materials and Method: Initially, we selected 30 questions. Based on feedback from the specialists, three items were excluded from the questionnaire. Logistic regression analyses were used to determine the items that were more effective of the 27 items for home health care needs assessment in the elderly. The resulting scale comprised nine items. Construct validity was assessed using factor analysis, specifically principal component analysis. A Receiver Operating Characteristic was constructed by calculating the specificity and sensitivity of the scale cut-off values.
Results: According to factor analysis, factors were named “activities of daily living (five items)” and “medical conditions (four items).” Cronbach's alpha value was 0.803. Home Health Care Need Scale for the Elderly scores were highly correlated with Katz Activities of Daily Living( r=-0.907) and Barthel Index (r=0.900) by Spearman's rank correlation analysis. An Area Under Curve of 0.860 was found in our study. The analysis indicated that a cut-off score of two had a sensitivity and specificity of 68.2% and 92.9%, respectively.
Conclusion: The Home Health Care Need Scale for the Elderly is a reliable and efficient scale for determining homecare need. The scale must be administered in larger field studies.
Keywords : Elderly; Homecare Need Scale; Activities of Daily Living; Scale Development