Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Oct 28;52(Suppl 4):iv112-iv117.
doi: 10.1093/ageing/afad121.

A systematic review of measures of ability to meet basic needs in older persons

Taryn Williams  1   2 , Leon Geffen  1   3 , Sebastiana Kalula  3 , Dan J Stein  2 , Jotheeswaran Amuthavalli Thiyagarajan  4 , Christopher Mikton  5 , Theresa Diaz  6
Affiliations

A systematic review of measures of ability to meet basic needs in older persons

Taryn Williams et al. Age Ageing. .

Abstract

Background: The ability of older persons to meet their basic needs (i.e. personal, financial and housing security), as well as to perform Activities of Daily Living (ADL), is crucial. It is unclear, however, whether such measures exist. This systematic review aimed to review English-language measures of the ability of older persons to meet their basic needs, and to critically review the comprehensiveness of these measures and their psychometric properties.

Methods: Fifteen electronic databases including PubMed, EBSCOhost and CINAHL were systematically searched for studies of measures that assessed the ability of older persons to meet their basic needs, as defined by the World Health Organization. Two review authors independently assessed the studies for inclusion in the review and evaluated their comprehensiveness and psychometrics.

Results: We found seven instruments from 62 studies that assessed multi-domain function including ADL and some elements of basic needs. The instruments varied in breadth and in reporting of key psychometric criteria. Further, no single instrument provided a comprehensive assessment of the ability of older persons to meet their basic needs.

Conclusion: No single instrument that measures the ability to meet basic needs was identified by this review. Further research is needed to develop an instrument that assesses the ability of older persons to meet their basic needs. This measure should include an evaluation of ADL.

Keywords: ability to meet basic needs; measures to meet basic needs; older people; systematic review.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Dr Taryn Williams has no competing interests. Dr Leon Geffen is a Fellow of interRAI and co-author of the interRAI Check-Up Self-report instrument. He receives no financial remuneration for this work. Dr Sebastiana Kalula has no competing interests. The authors alone are responsible for the views expressed in this article and they do not necessarily represent the views, decisions or policies of the institutions with which they are affiliated.

References

    1. Beard JR, Officer A, de Carvalho IA et al. The World report on ageing and health: a policy framework for healthy ageing. Lancet 2016; 387: 2145–54. - PMC - PubMed
    1. United Nations Population Fund. The Human Rights-Based Approach. 2014. Available at: https://www.unfpa.org/human-rights-based-approach.
    1. Moher D, Liberati A, Tetzlaff J, Altman DG, The PRISMA Group . Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses: the PRISMA statement. BMJ 2009; 6: e1000097. 10.1371/journal.pmed.1000097. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. World Health Organization. World report on ageing and health. World Health Organization. ‎2015‎. https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/186463.
    1. Mokkink LB, Prinsen CA, Patrick DL et al. COSMIN Study Design checklist for Patient-reported outcome measurement instruments. Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2019; 1–32.

Publication types