Translation and validation of the Greek version of an ageism scale for dental students (ASDS_Gr)

Objectives To describe the validation of a new 27-item ageism scale for dental students in Greece. Background A new ageism scale for dental students has been developed by American and European Gerodontology educators and was preliminary validated in the United States. Methods The scale was translated into Greek and administered to 8th- and 10th-semester dental students in Athens. Principal components analysis was used to explore the internal structure of the measure; internal consistency reliability was assessed using Cronbach's alpha coefficient; corrected item-total correlations were calculated to decide which low contributing items should be removed from the scale; and discriminant validity was tested investigating variation in relation to demographic and educational factors. Results A total of 152 students responded to the questionnaire. The Principal component analysis offered a 15-item scale distributed into four factors that accounted for 56.4%, of the total variance, produced stronger factor loadings, a comparable amount of overall component variance and logical sets of components. The four factors produced were values/ethics about older people (four items, alpha = 0.71), patient compliance (four items, alpha = 0.72), barriers to dental care (four items, alpha = 0.57) and dentist-older patient interaction (three items, alpha = 0.64). Discriminant validity revealed statistically significant differences in factors and items related to semester of studies, gender and family's permanent residence. Conclusion The preliminary validation of the Greek version of the ageing scale for dental students revealed a 15-item questionnaire that demonstrated acceptable validity and reliability and could be further tested in larger samples.