School of Psychology of Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
Center for Population and Development Studies, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China.
Int Psychogeriatr. 2014 Mar;26(3):517-23. doi: 10.1017/S1041610213002007. Epub 2013 Nov 20.
The Geriatric Anxiety Inventory (GAI) was developed to assess anxiety in older adults. The objectives of this work were as follows: (a) to analyze the psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the GAI (GAI-CV), and (b) to explore the extent of anxiety and related factors in the elderly Chinese residents of Beijing.
Participants in this study included 1,047 people (59.4% female) more than 60 years old who were living in the community. They were randomly selected from 15 communities in Beijing. Basic information was collected. Anxiety was measured using the GAI-CV, the Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS), and the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI).
The GAI-CV exhibited good internal consistency (Cronbach's α = 0.94) and demonstrated good concurrent validity against the SAS (r = 0.52, p = 0.018) and the BAI (r = 0.560, p = 0.000). Item response theory (IRT) analyses showed that the items of the GAI-CV exhibited high difficulty (0.97-2) and discrimination parameters (1.91-5.33). The items exhibited information parameters greater than 1.25 with the exceptions of items 2, 12, and 18. The GAI-CV scores were significantly associated with gender, age, and chronic disease. However, no significant differences due to marriage or education were found.
The GAI is a new scale that was specifically designed to measure anxiety in older people. The results of this study suggest that the GAI-CV had good psychometric properties, but some items need to be modified. IRT analyses indicated that the GAI-CV provided good measures of anxiety across the moderately high to very high levels. The GAI-CV may be a useful instrument for further research studies aimed at analyzing high-level anxiety among older adults in China.
老年焦虑量表（GAI）是为评估老年人的焦虑而开发的。本研究的目的如下：（a）分析中文版老年焦虑量表（GAI-CV）的心理测量学特性；（b）探讨北京老年居民的焦虑程度及相关因素。
本研究纳入了 1047 名（59.4%为女性）年龄超过 60 岁、居住在社区的老年人，他们是从北京的 15 个社区中随机抽取的。收集了基本信息，使用 GAI-CV、自评焦虑量表（SAS）和贝克焦虑量表（BAI）评估焦虑。
GAI-CV 具有良好的内部一致性（Cronbach's α = 0.94），与 SAS（r = 0.52，p = 0.018）和 BAI（r = 0.560，p = 0.000）具有良好的同时效度。项目反应理论（IRT）分析表明，GAI-CV 的项目具有较高的难度（0.97-2）和区分参数（1.91-5.33）。除第 2、12 和 18 项外，项目的信息参数均大于 1.25。GAI-CV 得分与性别、年龄和慢性病显著相关，但与婚姻或教育无关。
GAI 是一种专门用于测量老年人焦虑的新量表。本研究结果表明，GAI-CV 具有良好的心理测量学特性，但部分项目需要修改。IRT 分析表明，GAI-CV 在从中度到高度焦虑水平提供了良好的测量结果。GAI-CV 可能是分析中国老年人高水平焦虑的进一步研究的有用工具。
