Research

Telephone reliability of the Frenchay Activity Index and EQ-5D amongst older adults

Steven McPhail^1,2 , Paul Lane¹ , Trevor Russell² , Sandra G Brauer² , Steven Urry³ , Jan Jasiewicz³ , Peter Condie³ and Terry Haines^4,5

¹  Princess Alexandra Hospital, Ipswich Road, Woolloongabba, Queensland, Australia

²  The University of Queensland, School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia

³  Queensland University of Technology, Victoria Park Road, Kelvin Grove, Queensland, Australia

⁴  Southern Health, Allied Health Research Unit, Kingston Centre, Cnr Warrigal and Kingston Roads, Cheltenham, Victoria, Australia

⁵  Monash University, Physiotherapy Department, School of Primary Health Care, Monash University Peninsular Campus, Victoria, Australia

author email corresponding author email

Health and Quality of Life Outcomes 2009, 7:48doi:10.1186/1477-7525-7-48

Published:	29 May 2009

Abstract

Background

Older adults may find it problematic to attend hospital appointments due to the difficulty associated with travelling to, within and from a hospital facility for the purpose of a face-to-face assessment. This study aims to investigate equivalence between telephone and face-to-face administration for the Frenchay Activities Index (FAI) and the Euroqol-5D (EQ-5D) generic health-related quality of life instrument amongst an older adult population.

Methods

Patients aged >65 (n = 53) who had been discharged to the community following an acute hospital admission underwent telephone administration of the FAI and EQ-5D instruments seven days prior to attending a hospital outpatient appointment where they completed a face-to-face administration of these instruments.

Results

Overall, 40 subjects' datasets were complete for both assessments and included in analysis. The FAI items had high levels of agreement between the two modes of administration (item kappa's ranged 0.73 to 1.00) as did the EQ-5D (item kappa's ranged 0.67–0.83). For the FAI, EQ-5D VAS and EQ-5D utility score, intraclass correlation coefficients were 0.94, 0.58 and 0.82 respectively with paired t-tests indicating no significant systematic difference (p = 0.100, p = 0.690 and p = 0.290 respectively).

Conclusion

Telephone administration of the FAI and EQ-5D instruments provides comparable results to face-to-face administration amongst older adults deemed to have cognitive functioning intact at a basic level, indicating that this is a suitable alternate approach for collection of this information.