A Systematic Review Evaluating the Use of the interRAI Home Care Instrument in Research for Older People

ABSTRACT

Objective: To summarize studies that used the international Resident Assessment home care instrument (interRAI HC) to examine study outcomes for older people.

Methods: A comprehensive systematic search was performed to identify relevant studies, using five databases from 1990 until October 2016. The Cochrane Risk-Bias assessment tool and Newcastle-Ottawa Scale was used to assess the quality of RCTs and non-RCTs, respectively.

Results: Based on the full-text analysis, 40 studies met the inclusion criteria out of 506 total records. The review included 6 RCTs, 2 quasi-experimental, 17 prospective and retrospective studies, 13 cross-sectional and 2 longitudinal studies. A series of interventions and/or applications were identified from this review that employed the use of interRAI HC instrument: (a) in health services, (b) as a new integrated care model and for implementing machine learning algorithm, (c) as a comprehensive geriatric assessment tool, (d) in case management, (e) for care planning and screening, (f) in drug therapy assessment, (g) to assess caregiver burden, and (h) for various risk assessments. Studies that employed the interRAI HC instrument reported an array of health-outcome measures mostly related to functional, cognition, hospitalization and mortality.

Conclusions: Application of the interRAI HC tool varied markedly across all studies, and the outcomes measures were heterogeneous. Future research directions are discussed.

Clinical Implications: The results from this study facilitate the use of interRAI HC as a tool to measure an intervention's effect that leads to improvements in specific geriatric-related health outcome measures emphasizes on functional status and quality of life and ascertain its utility as a quality indicator for the care of older individuals.

KEYWORDS:

• Geriatric assessment
• home care
• interRAI
• interRAI instrument
• minimum data set
• older people

Clinical Implications

• The major use of the interRAI HC instrument identified from this review was applied towards health services.

• Studies that employed the interRAI HC instrument reported an array of health-outcome measures mostly related to functional, cognition, hospitalization and mortality.

• The results from this study facilitate the use of interRAI HC as a tool to measure an intervention's effect that leads to improvements in specific geriatric-related health outcome measures emphasizes on functional status and quality of life and ascertain its utility as a quality indicator for the care of older individuals.

Acknowledgments

A Postdoctoral Fellowship is awarded to Dr Mohammed S Salahudeen from the Division of Health Sciences, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. The research was conducted during the tenure of a Health Sciences Collaborative Postdoctoral Fellowship of the University of Otago, New Zealand. The funder and sponsor had no role in study design or data collection, analysis or interpretation. M.S.S. and P.S.N. designed the search strategy, extracted data, analysed data and drafted the manuscript. All authors contributed to data analysis and interpretation, critically commented on, and approved the final manuscript.

Supplementary Data

Supplemental data for this article can be access on the publisher’s website.

Conflict of Interest

Mohammed Salahudeen and Prasad Nishtala declare that they have no conflicts of interest relevant to the content of this article.

Additional information

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.