The evaluation of patients' needs comprises an important new field in planning for services and care. The elderly present a whole series of peculiarities that call for the necessity for the preparation of specialized instruments. Within the framework of a project of epidemiological research, and given the lack of such instruments in our setting, the Camberwell Assessment of Needs for the Elderly (CANE) was validated and employed.
Objective: To provide further evidence on the validity of the Spanish version of CANE and its suitability for epidemiological surveys.
Design: The Community Epidemiological Survey of Psychogeriatric Needs of the Catchment Area of Santiago de Compostela is a cross-sectional double-phase epidemiological survey.
Materials and Methods: A random sample of 800 people, representative of a Galician Public Health Authority Area (500.000 inhabitants), were interviewed in their homes, using lay interviewers. In the second phase the CANE was completed by 365 elderly persons and 66 carers. The scoring of the CANE was correlated with other instruments that measure psychiatric symptomatology, dependence and carer burden, in order to evaluate the concurrent validity.
Results: The mean duration of the CANE interviews, similar for subjects and carers, was 25 and 20 minutes, respectively. The questionnaire was acceptable, easy to apply and had good concurrent validity.
Conclusion: The paper provides further evidence on the validity of the Spanish version of CANE. Grant XUGA 20802A97 (Galician Autonomous Government).
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