Pd. Harvey et al., SOCIAL-ADAPTIVE FUNCTIONING EVALUATION (SAFE) - A RATING-SCALE FOR GERIATRIC PSYCHIATRIC-PATIENTS, Schizophrenia bulletin, 23(1), 1997, pp. 131
Geriatric chronic psychiatric inpatients often remain in a chronic psy
chiatric hospital because of serious deficits in adaptive life functio
ns. Because the additional complications and adaptive changes associat
ed with aging have not been considered in previous scales, the Social-
Adaptive Functioning Evaluation (SAFE) was developed. The items in the
scale measure social-interpersonal, instrumental, and life skills fun
ctioning and are designed to be rated by observation, caregiver contac
t, and interaction with the subject if possible. Interrater and test-r
etest reliability were examined (n = 60) and convergent and discrimina
nt validity were rated against other relevant measures (n = 50) in sep
arate studies, with all being found adequate. The factor structure of
the scale was examined with exploratory factor analysis, revealing a t
hree-factor structure. Finally, predictive validity was examined in a
preliminary study of 140 patients, 45 of whom were discharged after th
e assessment. The results indicate that patients who remained hospital
ized could be discriminated from those who were sent to nursing homes
or community care on the basis of certain SAFE items and subscales. Th
ese results support the use of this instrument in later studies of ger
iatric psychiatric patients.