Internal Consistency of Reliability Assessment of the Persian version of the ‘Home Falls and Accident Screening Tool’

Introduction: Falling is a common problem among the elderly. Falling indoors and outdoors is highly prevalent among the Iranian elderly. Therefore, identification of the contributing factors at home and their modification can reduce falls and subsequent injuries in the elderly. The goal of this study was to identify the elderly at risk of fall, using the ‘Home Falls and Accident Screening Tool’ (HOME FAST), and to determine the reliability of this tool. Method: Sixty old people were selected from five geographical regions of Tehran through the Local Town Councils. Participants were aged 60 to 65 years, and HOME FAST was used to assess inter rater and test- retest reliability. Results: Test-retest reliability in the study showed that agreement between the items of the Persian version of HOME FAST was over 0.8, which is a very good reliability. The agreement between the domains was 0.65-1.00, indicative of moderate to high reliability. Moreover, the Inter rater reliability of the items was over 0.8, which is also very good. The correlation of each item between the domains was 0.01-1.00, which shows poor to high reliability. Discussion: This study showed that the reliability of the Persian version of HOME FAST is high. This tool can therefore be used as an appropriate screening tool by professionals to take necessary preventive measures for the Iranian elderly population.