BMC Psychol. 2025 Dec 30. doi: 10.1186/s40359-025-03919-y. Online ahead of print.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Attitudes towards aging are multidimensional. It is often affected by the individual’s social and cultural background. Valid and reliable tools across diverse cultures are important to assess the attitudes towards aging among older adults.
METHODS: The Sinhala version of the Attitudes to Aging Questionnaire (AAQ) was cross-culturally validated following standard procedures. A validation study was conducted with a sample of 185 Sinhala-speaking older adults residing in residential care facility homes in the Colombo district. The Sinhala version of the AAQ was interviewer-administered along with the World Health Organization Quality of Life-BREF (WHOQOL-BREF) questionnaire. Floor and ceiling effects were assessed for each AAQ subscale, considering effects present if ≥ 15% of participants achieved the lowest or highest possible score. Psychometric properties (Internal consistency reliability, convergent validity, known-group validity, and construct validity) were assessed by descriptive and inferential statistics using SPSS version 26. Statistical significance was set as 0.05.
RESULTS: The mean age of the sample was 72.3 ± 6.1 years. The majority (56.8%) of the participants were females. No significant floor or ceiling effects were observed for any subscale of AAQ. Internal consistency reliability, measured by Cronbach’s alpha for psychosocial loss, psychological growth, and physical change subscales was 0.81, 0.77, and 0.74, respectively. Significant correlations were shown in Pearson’s correlation between all the AAQ subscales and WHOQOL-BREF domains, indicating the convergent validity. Known-group validity showed that married individuals and individuals diagnosed with chronic disease scored significantly higher mean on all three subscales of AAQ. The exploratory factor analysis extracted three factors with 57.77% cumulative variance with exceptions from the original version. Twenty-two items loaded to any of the factors except items 21and 23.
CONCLUSION: The Sinhala version of the AAQ has sound psychometric characteristics and it is a culturally appropriate and reliable measure to assess attitudes towards aging among Sinhala-speaking older adults.
PMID:41469751 | DOI:10.1186/s40359-025-03919-y
