Cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the Chinese version of the loneliness scale for older adults

Loneliness is emerging as a public health problem. Due to the social and emotional attributes of loneliness, there is a lack of multidimensional-related research and an effective scale with which to evaluate the loneli-ness of older adults in China. We intend to translate and psychometrically validate the Chinese version of the loneliness scale for older adults (C-LSOA). A cross-sectional study was conducted with a sample of 415 older adults in Huzhou, China. Content validity, construct validity, concurrent validity, and reliability were used to assess the scale's psychometric properties. Exploratory factor analysis of the C-LSOA extracted five common factors, and confirmatory factor analysis fit well. The model fit parameter values were X2/df = 2.060, CFI = 0.912, TLI = 0.902, RMSEA = 0.064, and SRMR = 0.060. The scale's content validity index was 0.93. The Cronbach's a for the total scale was 0.868, and the test-retest result was 0.854. The correlation between the C-LSOA and UCLA was 0.886, with good concurrent validity. The results indicated that the C-LSOA could be used to measure the loneliness of older adults in Chinese communities.(c) 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.