Using the Minimum Data Set to select nursing home residents for interview about pain

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: To determine how many nursing home residents can provide stable responses to a simple pain interview and whether a Minimum Data Set (MDS) cognitive performance measure can be used to identify these residents. DESIGN: Cross-sectional descriptive study. SETTING: Thirty-three community-based nursing homes. PARTICIPANTS: Eight hundred ninety-five nursing home residents. MEASUREMENTS: Resident completion rate, stability, and interrater reliability of a four-item interview derived from the Geriatric Pain Measure were calculated. Demographic data and MDS items concerning pain and memory were obtained from medical records. RESULTS: Overall, 835 residents were able to answer all four interview questions. At the lowest MDS recall score of O, 52.7% of residents were able to complete all questions. All residents able to respond to the interview achieved high stability (kappa = 0.633, P