• Carmen-Lucia Curcio, Yan Yan Wu, Afshin Vafaei, Juliana Fernandez de Souza Barbosa, Ricardo Guerra, Jack Guralnik, and Fernando Gomez.
• Research Group on Geriatrics and Gerontology, Faculty of Health Sciences, Universidad de Caldas, Manizales, Colombia.
• J. Gerontol. A Biol. Sci. Med. Sci. 2020 Jan 1; 75 (1): 181-188.

BackgroundWe determine the best combination of factors for predicting the risk of developing fear of falling (FOF) in older people via Classification Regression Tree (CaRT) analysis.MethodsCommunity-dwelling older adults living in Canada, Albania, Brazil, and Colombia were from International Mobility in Aging Study (IMIAS). In 2014, 1,725 participants (aged 65-74) were assessed. With a retention rate of 81%, in 2016, 1,409 individuals were reassessed. Risk factors for FOF were entered into the CaRT: age, sex, education, self-rated health, comorbidity, medication, visual impairment, frailty, cognitive deficit, depression, fall history, Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB), walking aid use, and mobility disability measured by the Nagi questionnaire.ResultsThe classification tree included 12 end groups representing differential risks of FOF with a minimum of two and a maximum of five predictors. The first split in the tree involved impaired physical function (SPPB scores). Respondents with less than 8 in SPPB score and mobility disability had 82% risk of developing FOF at the end of 2-year follow-up. Between 23.2% and 82.3% of the risk of developing FOF in 2 years of follow-up were explained by only five variables: age, sex, self-rated health, functional impairment measured by SPPB, and mobility disability. In those with no functional impairment or mobility disability, levels of education, sex, and self-rated health were important predictors of FOF in the future.ConclusionThis classification tree included different groups based on specific combinations of a maximum of five easily measurable predictors with emphasis on impaired physical functioning risk factors for developing FOF.© The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

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