Abstract
ABSTRACT.The concept Awareness of Age-Related Change (AARC) is defined as a person’s awareness that their behavior, level of physical, cognitive and social performance, and ways of experiencing life have changed as a consequence of having grown older, and not because of disease.Objective: A psychometric study investigating evidence of construct validity and internal consistency of the Portuguese version of the AARC Short Scale was carried out.Method: A convenience sample of 387 individuals aged≥60 years with no deficit suggestive of dementia were recruited at venues frequented by older persons and at households. Participants answered the Portuguese version of the scale, along with questionnaires collecting sociodemographic and frailty variables and self-rated health based on personal criteria and relative to peers.Results: Exploratory and confirmatory factorial analyses derived a structure with two orthogonal factors representing the latent variables gains and losses, invariant for age group, thus replicating the original scale. The factors explained a large proportion of item variability (58.6 to 51.8%) and exhibited high loadings (0.886 to 0.432) and good communality [0.787 for item 4 (better sense of what is important) and 0.369 for item 6 (less energy)]. The hypotheses of covariance between the new instrument and the parallel measures of frailty and self-rated health were confirmed. The levels of internal consistency were high (α>0.700).Conclusion: Evidence confirmed the factor and convergent (construct) validity and internal consistency of the new scale in Portuguese.
Highlights
The concept Awareness of Age-Related Change (AARC) was introduced in the lifespan psychology and aging literature by Diehl and Wahl,[1] who defined it as a person’s awareness that his/her behavior, level of physical, cognitive and social performance, and ways of experiencing life have changed as a consequence of having grown older,[1,2] and not because of disease
In congruence with its ties to the lifespan paradigm in psychology,[8] the AARC concept goes beyond the common positive-negative polarity.[1,2]
The data for the first subgroup aged 60–69 years and the first subgroup aged 70–80+ were both submitted to exploratory factor analysis (EFA), while the two parallel subsamples were submitted to Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA)
Summary
The concept Awareness of Age-Related Change (AARC) was introduced in the lifespan psychology and aging literature by Diehl and Wahl,[1] who defined it as a person’s awareness that his/her behavior, level of physical, cognitive and social performance, and ways of experiencing life have changed as a consequence of having grown older,[1,2] and not because of disease. In congruence with its ties to the lifespan paradigm in psychology,[8] the AARC concept goes beyond the common positive-negative polarity.[1,2] Gains and losses can be experienced concomitantly, within the same or different behavioral domains, such as health and physical functioning, cognitive functions, interpersonal relationships, social cognitive functioning, socioemotional functioning, and lifestyle and social engagement.[8] Evidence supporting that these behavioral domains are the source for most of adults’ subjective aging experiences was obtained in several focus groups[9] and in a daily diary study with community-residing older adults in Germany.[10]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
