Functional status measured by activities of daily living (ADL) may be used to predict nursing home placement. Scoring of ADL measures is summarized for convenience, yet this is accompanied by losing detail regarding deficits. We sought to determine whether a revised composite measure tailored to Michigan Medicaid beneficiaries would better identify those at risk for nursing home admission. We compared composite ADL measures created by exploratory factor analysis and additive modeling to Medicaid Enrollment, MI Choice Waiver program, and Nursing Facility claims data from 2013 to 2017. There were moderate to high levels of correlation between ADLs (.4-.82). Exploratory factor analysis extracted two factors, corresponding to domains of mobility or self-care tasks. Application of the self-care-based ADL limitations composite measure provided prediction power equivalent to an additive measure incorporating all ADL limitations for nursing home admission. This approach demonstrated improved interpretability with the need for just five measures.
Keywords: Rasch model; activities of daily living; exploratory factor analysis; functional status; nursing home placement.