An investigation of the psychometric properties of the Geriatric Anxiety Scale (GAS) in an Italian sample of community-dwelling older adults.

BACKGROUND

The Italian older adult population is increasing and psychiatric problems, such as anxiety among older adults, represent major challenges for public welfare. A strong need exists for instruments specifically developed to assess anxiety among Italian older adults. The Geriatric Anxiety Scale (GAS) is a 30-item self-report questionnaire that evaluates anxiety among older adults and has demonstrated strong psychometric properties in several languages.

OBJECTIVE

The present study aimed to validate an Italian version of the GAS (GAS-I) and to preliminarily investigate its psychometric properties.

METHOD

The translation was performed using a five-stage procedure, following a forward-back process and paying attention to cultural issues. The GAS-I was administered to 231 community-dwelling older adults with other commonly-used questionnaires of anxiety, depression, and quality of life.

RESULTS

Results confirmed good psychometric qualities of the questionnaire. Confirmatory factor analyses evidenced a unidimensional structure of the GAS-I, in accordance with other validated versions. Convergent and discriminant validity were highly satisfactory. The three-factor model also provided an acceptable fit to the data. Receiver operating characteristic curve analyses revealed good discriminatory power of the GAS-I.

CONCLUSION

These findings demonstrate that the GAS-I is a reliable and valid self-report questionnaire to measure anxiety among Italian older adults.