Attitudes toward the elderly among the health care providers: Reliability and validity of Turkish version of the UCLA Geriatrics Attitudes (UCLA-GA) scale

The population of above 65 years of age is increasing fast in societies, as the life expectancy is increasing and it leads to high demands for health care service. Health care service for the elderly should be provided by trained team in this field. Success of health care service to be rendered is related to knowledge, skill and attitudes of team members in different profession group (doctor, nurse, social worker, psychologist, etc.) about health of elderly. The aim of this study is to establish the Turkish validity and reliability of 14-question UCLA-GA scale, validity and reliability of which was proven and used the most frequently among the scales that assess attitudes of health care providers toward elderly. A total 256 people, 150 of them were post-graduates, 106 of them were pre-graduates were involved in the study at Ege University, medical faculty between the dates of December 2010 and February 2011. Majority of the participants (63.67%) were women and in the age group of 18-29 (58.3%). The ratio of the ones undergoing geriatric education is 38.2%. It was found out that the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) sampling adequacy test presented high correlation among the items in both single adult households of 14 items of the scale was 0.72. Cronbach alpha value of the scale was found as 0.67 and satisfying. As a result of examination with Tukey's test of additivity, it was seen that items of the scale have additive quality (F = 85.25, p < 0.0001). When we calculated the correlation of each item with total score, it was found that correlation coefficient varied between 0.32 and 0.68. Test-retest reliability was defined by use of Pearson correlation analysis. It was determined that test-retest consistency of correlation scale between two measurements was r = 0.51. As a result of test-retest application, the correlation between the first and second application scores of each item was analyzed to determine the internal consistency of each item of the scale. Based on this analysis it was found as p < 0.01 between r = 0.22 and 0.65. As a conclusion, Turkish validity and reliability of UCLA-GA scale was demonstrated in this study. Since Turkish version of UCLA-GA scale is short and clear, it is recommended to use it for determining attitudes of health care providers toward elderly in geriatrics. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.