Abstract: Objective To assess the comprehensive ability of the elderly in old-age care institutions, to identify the cut-off value for the comprehensive assessment of each level, provide personalized care for the elderly and reference for reasonable human resource allocation of nursing staff in old-age care institutions. Methods After investigating the current abilities of 725 elderly people in 3 old-age care institutions, and forming a comprehensive ability assessment scale for the elderly, cluster analysis method was used to conduct comprehensive ability assessment of 246 elderly people in the 4th institution. Discriminant analysis was used to establish discriminant functions to establish level boundary. Results Based on the best number of classifications and combined with discriminant analysis, the comprehensive assessment level of the elderly was divided into 4 levels. The higher the level, the worse the ability. The cut-off value of each level was 0~35, 36~51, 52~80, and 81~110 respectively. Conclusion Psychological state and cognitive ability, perception and communication, daily life and social participation ability should be taken into consideration when conducting comprehensive assessment of the elderly. Scientific and reasonable division has important guiding significance for the old-age care institutions to provide safe, efficient and high-quality personalized nursing care services for the elderly.

Key words: old-age care institution, comprehensive assessment level, cluster analysis, comprehensive assessment