Abstract
Background Balance confidence and fear of falling are factors associated with recurrent falls in people with Parkinson disease (PD). However, the accuracy for predicting falls on the basis of self-report measures has not been widely investigated.
Objective The study objectives were: (1) to compare the accuracy of the Activities-specific Balance Confidence Scale (ABC) and the Falls Efficacy Scale–International (FES-I) with that of the Berg Balance Scale (BBS), Dynamic Gait Index (DGI), Functional Reach Test (FRT), and Timed “Up & Go” Test (TUG) for predicting recurrent falls in people with PD and (2) to explore the ability of combinations of up to 3 tests to predict recurrent falls.
Design This was a prospective cohort study involving 225 people with PD.
Methods Participants were assessed with the ABC, FES-I, BBS, FRT, TUG, and DGI. Participants who reported 2 or more falls in the 12-month follow-up period were classified as recurrent fallers. Areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves were determined, and the Akaike information criterion was used to select the best predictive model.
Results Eighty-four participants (37.3%) were classified as recurrent fallers. Areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves for the ABC, FES-I, TUG, FRT, DGI, and BBS were 0.73, 0.74, 0.72, 0.74, 0.76, and 0.79, respectively. Two-test models provided additional discriminating ability compared with individual measures and had Akaike information criterion values similar to those of 3-test models, particularly the combination of the BBS with the FES-I.
Limitations The lack of an external validation sample was a limitation of this study.
Conclusions The ABC and FES-I demonstrated moderate accuracy in predicting recurrent falls and a predictive ability similar to that of performance-based balance measures, especially the FRT and the TUG. Two-test models showed performance similar to that of 3-test models, suggesting that a combination of 2 measures may improve the ability to predict recurrent falls in people with PD. Specifically, the combination of the BBS with the FES-I may be considered.
Footnotes
All authors provided concept/idea/research design. Ms Almeida provided writing. Ms Almeida, Dr Valenca, and Ms Negreiros provided data collection. Ms Almeida and Dr Oliveira-Filho provided data analysis. Ms Almeida, Dr Valenca, Dr Pinto, and Dr Oliveira-Filho provided project management. Dr Valenca and Ms Negreiros provided participants and facilities/equipment. Dr Valenca, Ms Negreiros, Dr Pinto, and Dr Oliveira-Filho provided consultation (including review of manuscript before submission). The authors thank Antônio Cunha Porto Maia for his statistical consultations.
This study was approved by the Comitê de Ética em Pesquisa da Secretaria da Saúde do Estado da Bahia, Escola Estadual de Saúde Pública, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil.
- Received March 20, 2015.
- Accepted January 17, 2016.
- © 2016 American Physical Therapy Association