Development, reliability and validity of sense of gain scale for traditional Chinese medicine healthcare services for older adults in the community

Abstract

The Chinese government values the older adults' sense of gain from healthcare service. The aim of this study was to construct a Sense of Gain Scale for traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) healthcare services for older adults in the community, and evaluate its reliability and validity. Based on literature review and expert consultation, this study developed a Sense of Gain Scale for TCM healthcare services for older adults in the community. A total of 460 participants were recruited to perform reliability analysis, exploratory factor analysis, and Spearman correlation analysis, while another 673 participants were used for confirmatory factor analysis to evaluate the validity of the scale. The Sense of Gain Scale was composed of 14 items that could be classified into the following five dimensions: satisfaction, effectiveness, accessibility, fairness, and responsiveness. The overall Cronbach's α coefficient of the scale was 0.961, with each dimension ranging from 0.861 to 0.928. The split-half reliability of the total scale was 0.971, indicating good reliability. Five common factors were extracted to explain 85.49% of the total variation. exploratory factor analysis showed that the scale had good construct validity. Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) was used to evaluate criterion validity, and the correlation coefficient between test score and criterion was > 0.6. The Sense of Gain Scale has good reliability and validity, and can be used as a measurement tool to evaluate the level of sense of gain for TCM healthcare services for older adults in the community.