PROXY RESPONSE PATTERNS AMONG THE AGED - EFFECTS ON ESTIMATES OF HEALTH-STATUS AND MEDICAL-CARE UTILIZATION FROM THE 1982-1984 LONG-TERM-CARE SURVEYS

We examined the use of proxies in samples of persons aged 65 years and over from the 1982 and 1984 National Long Term Care Surveys (NLTCS). The NLTCS are designed to describe the Medicare-enrolled elderly popul ation, their health and functioning, hospital, home health, and instit utional use. The NLTCS, being longitudinal, allows trends in functiona l and health status to be examined as well as the changing character o f community based and institutional services used by chronically disab led persons aged 65 years and older. In analyses of proxy responses th ere was little evidence of differences in accuracy between self and pr oxy reports in persons with different health and functional characteri stics. The amount and type of proxy reporting did depend on the health and functional characteristics of the sample person. The cognitively impaired, and the frail elderly, had high levels of proxy use as well as small differences in the accuracy of reporting service use and prog ram enrollment. The results are consistent with methodological studies of proxy reporting in health surveys of other populations [1,2].