The development and pilot testing of a new instrument “Promoting Active Ageing in Older People with Mental Disorders Scale”

Background: There is little evidence about the factors that influence the promotion of active ageing, and the level of activity, in older people with mental disorders living in rural areas in Thailand.Objective: The purpose of this study was to develop and test a new instrument: Promoting Active Ageing in Older People with Mental Disorders (PAA-MD).Methods: The study involved item generation, content validity testing, face validity testing in 15 participants, and pilot testing in 40 participants of the PAA-MD. Content validity was evaluated using relevance ratings from an expert panel to calculate the content validity index for individual items (I-CVI) and the content validity index for the overall survey (S-CVI). Internal reliability was tested using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. External reliability was examined using Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient.Results: The PAA-MD uses a self-rating scale for primary care providers and consists of 59 items in three sections. Section I, 14 items, evaluates characteristics of participants and familiarity of active ageing and related concepts. Section II, 22 items, examines the promotion of active ageing amongst older people with mental disorders. Section III, 23 items, measures factors that influence the promotion of active ageing. A five-point Likert scale is used in sections II and III. S-CVI of section II and III were 0.82 and 0.84. Five items in section II and three items in section III were deleted (I-CVI < 0.78). Cronbach’s Alpha of section II and III was 0.975 and 0.964. The Spearman’s Correlation in section II and III was 0.970 and 0.988.Conclusions: The PAA-MD takes 10-15 minutes to complete, has good content validity, high internal reliability, and a strong correlation of external reliability.