Psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the aging transformation scale for elderly dementia patients

Background: The key part of home care services is the assessment of the needs of the home environment for elderly patients with dementia. The present study was conducted to evaluate the psychometric properties of a newly adapted Chinese version of an instrument designed to measure aging transformation needs among elderly patients with dementia.Methods: A sample of 175 patients with elderly dementia was selected from ten communities in China. The 55-item aging transformation needs scale was answered by the participants. Content validity, Cronbach’s alpha, item-to-total correlation, and exploratory factor analysis were used to assess the reliability and validity of the instrument.Results: The aging transformation needs scale has a good surface validity, content validity, and structural validity. The content validity was 0.965; 55 items had large factor loads on their corresponding principal components (≥0.5). There was a significant correlation between the aging transformation needs scale and each component (r = 0.897-0.973, all P<0.01), and 9 components also had a high correlation (r = 765～0.977, all P<0.01); the total table Cronbach's α was 0.993, the Cronbach's α of each constituent factor was 0.944～0.990, and the correlation coefficient between factor and content was >0.40 (all P<0.01). Conclusions: Evidence was found to support the reliability and validity of the aging transformation needs scale that measures the quality of the aging transformation needs for patients with elderly dementia from an aging transformation needs perspective.