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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Methodological challenges in measurements of functional ability in gerontological research
— a review | | Author(s) | K Avlund |
| Journal title | Aging: Clinical and Experimental Research, vol 9, no 3, June 1997 |
| Pages | pp 164-174 |
| Keywords | Mobility ; Self care capacity ; Measurement ; Evaluation ; Research Reviews. |
| Annotation | Advantages and disadvantages in different methods for measuring functional ability are described, with the main focus on frame of reference, operationalisation, practical procedure, validity, discriminatory power, and responsiveness. In measures of functional ability, the author recommends: 1) always to consider the theoretical frame of reference as part of the validation process; 2) always to assess whether the included activities and categories are meaningful to everyone in the study population before they are combined into an index and before tests for construct validity; 3) not to combine mobility, PADL (physical activities of daily living) and IADL (instrumental ADL) in the same index/scale; 4) not to use IADL as a health-related functional ability measure or, if used, to ask whether problems with IADL are caused by health-related factors; 5) always to make analyses of functional ability for men and women separately as patterns of functional ability and patterns of associations between other variables and functional ability often vary for men and women; and 6) to exclude the dead in analyses of change in functional ability if the focus is on predictors of deterioration in functional ability. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-980423219 A |
| Classmark | C4: CA: 3R: 4C: 3A:6KC |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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