Abstract
BackgroundThe increasing of older adults has led to enormous demand for medical care. However, as a group with unique needs and characteristics, older adults are often discriminated against in the medical field. In this paper, we aimed to translate the Fraboni Scale of Ageism (FSA) into Chinese and examine its construct validity, content validity, and reliability in Chinese mainland medical students. In order to evaluate the prevalence of ageism in Chinese medical students and prompt medical college to adopt necessary teaching methods to mitigate ageism in medical students.MethodsBy Brislin’s translation guidelines, FSA was translated to Chinese. The convenient sampling method was used to select samples for this survey, including 1,974 students from two medical schools in central and north China. Construct validity was verified by the exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. The content validity index (CVI) was used to assess content validity. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficients and intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) were used to estimate reliability.ResultsThe alpha coefficients for FSA (Chinese version) was 0.81 and ICC was 0.87. The CVI was 0.93. Three factors were identified by exploratory factor analysis explaining 34.84% of the total variance and a three-factor model was confirmed to fit by confirmatory factor analysis.ConclusionsFSA (Chinese version) is a reliable and valid scale for measuring discrimination degree against older adults in Chinese medical students.
Highlights
The increasing of older adults has led to enormous demand for medical care
Procedures This study proposed to evaluate validity and reliability of the Chinese version of Fraboni Scale of Ageism (FSA) in medical students
Demographic data A total of 1974 medical students completed the questionnaire in this study, of whom 23.5% (463) were freshman, 35.1% (693) were sophomore, 28.7% (566) were junior, 8.9% (176) were senior, the rest 3.9% (76) were the fifth year students
Summary
The increasing of older adults has led to enormous demand for medical care. As a group with unique needs and characteristics, older adults are often discriminated against in the medical field. In order to evaluate the prevalence of ageism in Chinese medical students and prompt medical college to adopt necessary teaching methods to mitigate ageism in medical students. With the development of world economy and medical technology, average life expectancy has been extended and the aging of population has become a global phenomenon rapidly. Ageism has become a ripe research topic for scholars in the context of global population ageing. People are accustomed to associate the older adults with many negative traits [3]. In 1960, Butler first used the concept “ageism” to express prejudice and discrimination toward older adults only because they are old [4]. Palmore defined ageism in terms of individual’s cognitive and
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