Psychometric properties of the Iranian version of the Kogan's Attitudes Toward Older People Scale.

AIM

The purpose of this study was to assess the psychometric properties "validity" and "reliability" of the Iranian version of Kogan's Attitudes Toward Older People Scale (KAOPS).

METHODS

The participants consisted of 350 nurses working in five teaching hospitals in Tehran, Iran. The scale was translated using the forward-backward translation technique. A two-phase data collection design was used in 2 weeks following the first completion. Exploratory factor analysis, content validity, construct validity, internal consistency, and stability-reliability was employed to check the scale's psychometric properties.

RESULTS

The scale total scores were between 42 and 188. All of the 34 items were found to have significant item-to-total correlations (P < 0.05). Two factors were extracted -"prejudice' and "appreciation"- which contributed to the scale variance of 32.83% and 25.93%, respectively. Cronbach's alpha was 0.83 for the total scale as 0.83 for "prejudice" and 0.86 for "appreciation". In addition, the scale stability was reported to be 0.90 and 0.83 for "prejudice" and "appreciation", respectively. The average content validity was 0.95, and construct validity was in an acceptable range.

CONCLUSION

The Iranian version of the KAOPS was shown to be a valid and reliable instrument for measuring nurses' knowledge about elders. This scale can be used in future studies to gather high-quality data for improving elder care.