Abstract
BackgroundWith the ongoing demographic shift, the quality of life and health promotion among older individuals are becoming increasingly important. Recent research suggests that Sense of Coherence positively affects quality of life. Hence, a valid and reliable measurement of Sense of Coherence is pivotal. The 13-item Orientation to Life Questionnaire (OLQ-13) can be used to measure Sense of Coherence. The purpose of the present study is to assess the psychometric properties, validity, and reliability, of the OLQ-13 in community-dwelling individuals, aged 65 and older.MethodsThe OLQ-13 scale was administered as part of a healthy aging project for non-institutionalized people aged 65 years and older. Internal consistency and reliability were assessed by means of inter-item and test-halves correlations and Cronbach's alpha. Construct validity was explored using cluster analysis and exploratory factor analysis (n = 703) and tested using confirmatory factor analysis on a separate subset of individuals (n = 658). Item face validity was investigated by means of 12 semi-structured interviews.ResultsThe reliability and the validity of the OLQ-13 in this population of non-institutionalized individuals aged 65 years and older was ambiguous, at least partly due to the poor performance of two items (b and d), which was confirmed by results from the qualitative part of this study. The psychometric properties of the proposed OLQ-11, obtained by deleting the two items, were better. In particular, the interpretation of exploratory factor solution improved. Whereas the underlying theoretical constructs could not be linked to the exploratory analyses of OLQ-13, this was to some extent possible in OLQ-11. The superior validity of OLQ-11 over OLQ-13 was supported by the better model fit in the confirmatory factor analysis.ConclusionsThe present mixed-method study suggests the proposed OLQ-11 as a more suitable instrument for measuring Sense of Coherence than the OLQ-13 in a population of ageing individuals. This study confirms that the validity and reliability of OLQ-13 may differ substantially in different populations.
Highlights
With the ongoing demographic shift, the quality of life and health promotion among older individuals are becoming increasingly important
Sense of Coherence in individuals is usually measured by the 29-item orientation to life questionnaire (OLQ)
Where the underlying theoretical constructs could not be linked to the exploratory analyses of OLQ-13, this was to some extent possible in OLQ-11 with
Summary
With the ongoing demographic shift, the quality of life and health promotion among older individuals are becoming increasingly important. A valid and reliable measurement of Sense of Coherence is pivotal. The 13-item Orientation to Life Questionnaire (OLQ-13) can be used to measure Sense of Coherence. The purpose of the present study is to assess the psychometric properties, validity, and reliability, of the OLQ-13 in communitydwelling individuals, aged 65 and older. Sense of Coherence is described as a global orientation that expresses the extent to which individuals have a feeling of confidence that their environment is structured, predictable and explicable; resources are available to. Sense of Coherence in individuals is usually measured by the 29-item orientation to life questionnaire (OLQ). The shorter 13-item version of this questionnaire [2,7] Items in these questionnaires are designed to measure one of the SOC dimensions: meaningfulness Scores for each sub dimension may be computed as well [2]
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