TY - JOUR
T1 - Validation of the Perform-FES: a new fear of falling scale for hospitalized geriatric patients
AU - Ferrer Soler, Cecilia
AU - Cuvelier, Clémence
AU - Hars, Mélany
AU - Herrmann, François R.
AU - Charpiot, Adrienne
AU - Ducharne Wieczorkiewicz, Catherine
AU - Bruyère, Olivier
AU - Beaudart, Charlotte
AU - Zekry, Dina
AU - Gold, Gabriel
AU - Trombetti, Andrea
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors thank all members of the CHEOPS staff for their dedication and professionalism. They are especially indebted to the occupational therapists' team for their enthusiastic collaboration and hard work on the project: Catherine Ducharne (head occupational therapist), Raoua Ben Aziza, Florence Chiren Cellier, and Noémie Duc Mba. They also thank Elizabeth Bolomey-Koreneff for her strong support throughout the project.
Funding Information:
Open access funding provided by University of Geneva. This research was funded by Geneva University Hospitals (Research and development project 9-2018-I). The funding source had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; and decision to submit the manuscript for publication.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, The Author(s).
PY - 2021/1
Y1 - 2021/1
N2 - Background: Fear of falling is highly prevalent in older adults and associated with numerous negative health events. The main objective of this study was to validate a scale to assess fear of falling, based on performance in real situation (Perform-FES), in a hospitalized geriatric population. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 55 patients (mean age: 85.3 years; 58% women) hospitalized in a geriatric hospital in Geneva (Switzerland) were enrolled. The Perform-FES scale was administered to all patients in conjunction with four other fear of falling scales. We determined the floor and ceiling effects, internal consistency, reliability, construct validity, and discriminative power of the Perform-FES scale. Results: The Perform-FES scale did not demonstrate any significant floor or ceiling effect. It had a good internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.78) and an excellent reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient = 0.94). Regarding convergent validity, good correlations were shown between the score obtained on the Perform-FES scale and those obtained on other fear of falling scales. Also, the Perform-FES scale was able to discriminate patients with severe functional impairments (area under the ROC curve = 0.81) and had significantly better discriminating performance than other fear of falling scales. Conclusion: Findings suggest that the Perform-FES scale has good psychometric properties and may be a relevant tool to assess fear of falling in a geriatric hospitalized population. Future research should focus in particular on assessing the sensitivity to change and the predictive value of this scale in longitudinal studies, and its validity in other populations.
AB - Background: Fear of falling is highly prevalent in older adults and associated with numerous negative health events. The main objective of this study was to validate a scale to assess fear of falling, based on performance in real situation (Perform-FES), in a hospitalized geriatric population. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 55 patients (mean age: 85.3 years; 58% women) hospitalized in a geriatric hospital in Geneva (Switzerland) were enrolled. The Perform-FES scale was administered to all patients in conjunction with four other fear of falling scales. We determined the floor and ceiling effects, internal consistency, reliability, construct validity, and discriminative power of the Perform-FES scale. Results: The Perform-FES scale did not demonstrate any significant floor or ceiling effect. It had a good internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.78) and an excellent reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient = 0.94). Regarding convergent validity, good correlations were shown between the score obtained on the Perform-FES scale and those obtained on other fear of falling scales. Also, the Perform-FES scale was able to discriminate patients with severe functional impairments (area under the ROC curve = 0.81) and had significantly better discriminating performance than other fear of falling scales. Conclusion: Findings suggest that the Perform-FES scale has good psychometric properties and may be a relevant tool to assess fear of falling in a geriatric hospitalized population. Future research should focus in particular on assessing the sensitivity to change and the predictive value of this scale in longitudinal studies, and its validity in other populations.
KW - Assessment
KW - Fear of falling
KW - Hospital
KW - Older people
KW - Psychometric validation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85101364738&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s40520-020-01726-6
DO - 10.1007/s40520-020-01726-6
M3 - Article
C2 - 33063292
AN - SCOPUS:85101364738
SN - 1594-0667
VL - 33
SP - 67
EP - 76
JO - Aging Clinical and Experimental Research
JF - Aging Clinical and Experimental Research
IS - 1
ER -