A simple resident need-for-physical-assistance scale in eldercare: Validation using 4716 observation sequences of caring activities

Accurate and simple measures for classifying nursing home residents according to their care needs would be valuable for planning eldercare work. Our aim was to validate a developed classification scale of residents' need for physical assistance. Eldercare workers and managers in 20 Danish nursing homes classified 1456 residents into four categories (from light to complete need for physical assistance). We validated the resident need-for-assistance scale against 4716 workplace observation sequences of caring activities performed by eldercare workers. We found a strong correlation between the resident need-for-assistance scale and observed number of resident handlings (r = 0.71) and a moderate correlation for observed duration of care (r = 0.57). The discriminative ability of the scale was good for both number of resident handlings (ROC-AUC = 0.81) and for duration of care (ROC-AUC = 0.76). Our findings indicate that this simple scale is valid and feasible for classifying residents according to their physical assistance needs.