Development of the Self-neglect Questionnaire for the aged and its reliability and validity

Objective To develop a Self-neglect Questionnaire for the aged in China and to test its reliability and validity so as to provide an effective assessment tool for differentiating self-neglect for the aged. Methods The initial questionnaire was developed based on former results of qualitative research, literature review and the method of Delphi expert consultation. From April to May 2018, a total of 71 elderly inpatients were selected by convenience sampling at a ClassⅢ Grade A hospital in Wuhan to investigation with item analysis. From June to October 2018, by convenience sampling a total of 314 elderly inpatients were investigated formally at a Class Ⅲ Grade A hospital in Wuhan, and the questionnaire was tested in terms of reliability and validity. Results Finally, the Self-neglect Questionnaire induding 7 common factors and 24 items was formed. The Cronbach's α of the questionnaire was 0.875, the split-half reliability coefficient was 0.709. In content validity, the item-content validity index (I-CVI) ranged from 0.895 to 1, and the average scale-content validity index (S-CVI/Ave) was 0.987. Exploratory factor analysis extracted 7 common factors with 69.391% for the cumulative variance contribution. Conclusions The Self-neglect Questionnaire for the aged has good reliability and validity which can be an assessment tool for self-neglect of the aged. Key words: Aged; Self-neglect; Questionnaire development; Delphi method