Introduction The Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA) is used in the care of older person for performing a multidimensional evaluation. However, CGA is a time-consuming assessment and abbreviated screening instruments have been proposed. The purpose of this study was to analyse the performance of the Abbreviated Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (aCGA) in elders living in long-stay institutions in Brazil.

Methods This is a study with elderly residents of long-stay institutions in four Brazilian cities. The assessment of functional, emotional and cognitive domains was performed with the instruments: Activities of Daily Living (ADL); Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL); Geriatric Depression scale (GDS); Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and with the aCGA. Each domain was scored separately with both instruments and individuals classified accordingly. Pearson's correlation coefficients and positive predictive values (PPV) were used to compare the abbreviated version with the full instruments.

Results These are preliminary results for 340 elders. Mean age was 75.5 years. The prevalence of dependence in ADL (65.0% vs 40.0%) and in IADL (72.9% vs 58.5%) and of cognitive impairment (84.9% vs 65.8%) were higher when identified through aCGA, than with the full instrument. However, depression was less detected with the aCGA (27.6% vs 31.5%). Correlations between abbreviated and full instruments ranged from 0.80 to 0.98 (p<0.001). The highest PPV of the aCGA was observed for depression (86.9%) and the lowest for ADL (58.4%).

Conclusions In general, the aCGA performed well as a screening instrument in this setting. However, caution must be exercised in relation to the identification of depression.