[Subscales of the BOP (Assessment Scale for Elderly Patients) in psychogeriatrics]

The BOP (a rating scale for elderly patients) and its subscales are used in many nursing homes in the Netherlands. The subscales are the result of a factor analysis, based on data gathered in physically handicapped, psychogeriatric and elderly psychiatric patients. We assessed the reproducibility of these subscales for data only related to psychogeriatric patients. Therefore we gathered the rating scale scores on admission of 569 patients with dementia and analysed them. The subscales Dependency, Social Disturbance and Orientation & Communication were recognisable as a factor and did not differ much from the original subscales. The subscales Depression, Inactivity and Physical Impairment could not be identified as a factor. A new subscale 'Nocturnal behaviour' was formed. The most important reason for the dissimilarities in the 2 analyses seems to be the fact that the recent analysis is only based on assessment of psychogeriatric patients.