Evaluation by the Basic Checklist and the risk of 3 years incident long-term care insurance certification

A rapidly aging society needs effective approaches to support frail older people who have a high risk of requiring long-term care. We investigated the validity of the Basic Checklist (the "Kihon Checklist") as a tool to select candidates for a program to prevent long-term care.

A survey with questions from the Basic Checklist was conducted with functionally independent older residents aged ≥65 years living in Takasaki City, Japan. Subjects who completed the questionnaire were followed over 3 years for the presence or absence of certification for long-term care requirement. We used multiple logistic regression analysis to calculate the odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (95%CI) for long-term care requirement certification.

A total of 21 325 subjects were analyzed. The odds ratio was the highest when items number one-20 had a total of ≥10 checked answers (OR, 2.71; 95%CI, 2.22-3.32). Physical function (OR, 2.29; 95%CI, 2.05-2.55), nutritional condition (OR, 1.85; 95%CI, 1.38-2.48), oral function (OR, 1.40; 95%CI, 1.25-1.57), whether patients were elected as a care prevention program candidate (OR, 1.90; 95%CI, 1.73-2.08), Homebound state (OR, 1.91; 95%CI, 1.55-2.37), the presence of dementia (OR, 1.97; 95%CI, 1.75-2.20), and depression (OR, 1.96; 95%CI, 1.73-2.22) were associated with a higher odds ratio.

Individuals who were selected as long-term care prevention program candidates based on the Basic Checklist had a higher risk of requiring long-term care. Older residents who corresponded to 10 or more of the 20 Basic Checklist items are at the highest risk of becoming certified as needing long-term care.