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Concordance Between Anticholinergic Burden Scales
Author(s) -
Naples Jennifer G.,
Marcum Zachary A.,
Perera Subashan,
Gray Shelly L.,
Newman Anne B.,
Simonsick Eleanor M.,
Yaffe Kristine,
Shorr Ronald I.,
Hanlon Joseph T.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of the american geriatrics society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.992
H-Index - 232
eISSN - 1532-5415
pISSN - 0002-8614
DOI - 10.1111/jgs.13647
Subject(s) - medicine , concordance , anticholinergic , medline , gerontology , psychiatry , intensive care medicine , political science , law
Objectives To evaluate concordance of five commonly used anticholinergic scales. Design Cross‐sectional secondary analysis. Setting Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Memphis, Tennessee. Participants Community‐dwelling adults aged 70 to 79 with baseline medication data from the Health, Aging, and Body Composition Study (N = 3,055). Measurements Any anticholinergic use, weighted scores, and total standardized daily dosage were calculated using five anticholinergic measures (Anticholinergic Cognitive Burden ( ACB ) Scale, Anticholinergic Drug Scale ( ADS ), Anticholinergic Risk Scale ( ARS ), Drug Burden Index anticholinergic component ( DBI ‐ AC h), and Summated Anticholinergic Medications Scale ( SAMS )). Concordance was evaluated using kappa statistics and Spearman rank correlations. Results Any anticholinergic use in rank order was 51% for the ACB , 43% for the ADS , 29% for the DBI ‐ AC h, 23% for the ARS , and 16% for the SAMS . Kappa statistics for all pairwise use comparisons ranged from 0.33 to 0.68. Similarly, concordance as measured using weighted kappa statistics ranged from 0.54 to 0.70 for the three scales not incorporating dosage ( ADS , ARS , ACB ). Spearman rank correlation between the DBI ‐ AC h and SAMS was 0.50. Conclusion Only low to moderate concordance was found between the five anticholinergic scales. Future research is needed to examine how these differences in measurement affect their predictive validity with respect to clinically relevant outcomes, such as cognitive impairment.