Background

A first step to offer community-dwelling older persons proactive care is to identify those at risk of functional decline within a year. This study investigates the predictive value of registered information, questionnaire and GP-opinion on functional decline.

Methods

In this cohort study, embedded within the ISCOPE-trial, participants (≥75 years) completed the ISCOPE-screening questionnaire on four health domains. GPs gave their opinion on vulnerability of participants. Functional status was measured at baseline and 12 months (Groningen Activities Restriction Scale [GARS]). The outcome was functional decline (death, nursing home admission, 10% with greatest functional decline). The predictive value of pre-selected variables (age, sex, polypharmacy, multimorbidity, living situation; GPs’ opinion on vulnerability, number of domains with problems [ISCOPE-score]) was compared with the area under the curves (AUC) for logistic regression models.

Results

2018 of the 2211 participants (median age 82.1 years [IQR 78.8-86.5], 68.0% female, median GARS 31 [IQR 24-41]) were visited at 12 months (median GARS 34 [IQR 26-44]). 394 participants (17.8%) had functional decline (148 died, 45 nursing home admissions, 201 with greatest functional decline). The AUC for age and sex was 0.602, increasing to 0.620 (p = 0.029) with polypharmacy, multimorbidity and living situation. The GPs’ opinion added more (AUC 0.672, p < 0.001) than the ISCOPE-score (AUC 0.649, p = 0.007). AUC with all variables was 0.686 (p = 0.016), and 0.643 for GPs' opinion alone.

Conclusions

The GPs’ opinion and ISCOPE-score improve this prediction model for functional decline based on readily available variables. GPs could identify older patients for further assessment with their clinical judgement.

Trial registration

Netherlands trial register, NTR1946 . Registered 10 August 2009.