accuracy of berg balance scale to predict falls among community elderly dwellers

b a c k g r oun d & aim: berg balance scale (bbs) is one of the most applied tests to identify high-risk elderly people for fall. fall is a common health problem among community senior citizens. a diag- nostic test to identify high-risk elderly people can prevent or alleviate falls. the purpose of this study was to determine the accuracy of bbs to predict falls among elderly community dwellers. methods  &  materials:   this  cross-sectional  study  was  conducted  among  elderly  community dwellers in shahroud, semnan providence, iran. in this study, 1312 elderly individuals were regis- tered for the study, 455 of them were randomly selected as qualified participants. this study is a validity investigation on bbs among elderly community dwellers. to validate the bbs, research- ers assessed validity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values, positive likelihood ratio (lr+) and negative lr (lr−). r es u l t s : the findings of this study showed that 243 subjects were male, and 212 subjects were female. the mean age of subjects were 71.45 ± 9.25 years. this study showed sensitivity  and specificity of 0.63 and 0.97, respectively. according to the findings of the study, lr+ and lr− were calculated as 9.57 and 0.39, respectively. con cl u s i o n : the results of the study are in harmony with the hypothesis to design the test, i.e. bbs have the acceptable accuracy to identify high-risk community elderly people for falls. how- ever, other influential factors such as personal and environmental variables are necessary to con- sider for prediction of falls.