The Self-care Ability Scale for the Elderly

The aim of this study was to develop an instrument for measurement of perceived self-care ability among the elderly. A theoretical construct of self-care ability was formulated and operationalized. The self-report instrument was designed as a summative Likert scale. A consecutive sample of 57 elderly patients were interviewed with the raw scale. Seventeen items were found to differentiate sufficiently and to correlate with the other items of the scale. The scale was found to have item-total correlations in the range 0.24–0.67, all but two being significant with p values between < 0.05 and < 0.001, and a Cronbach's alpha value of 0.68. Face validity was established with a questionnaire and construct validity was partly supported by factor analysis. Evidence of construct validity was also found in the scale's capability to differentiate between participating patients with a stroke and with other medical diagnoses (p < 0.02). Predictive value for home was 78.57% and for institution 17.86%.