Development of the Scale of Perceiving the Attitudes of Healthcare Professionals by Elderly, Psychometric Characteristics, Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Cut-Off Value: Methodological, Descriptive, Cross-Sectional and Correlational Study

Abstract

Objective: In order to determine whether the attitudes of healthcare professionals’re perceived as discrimination by elderly individuals, “The Scale of Perceiving the Attitudes of Healthcare Pro- fessionals by Elderly” scale was developed, psychometric properties’re evaluated and the cut-off value was determined. Material and Meth- ods: The sample of this study, which was carried out in the descriptive and relationship-seeking type of research with the methodological method, consisted of 301 elderly individuals aged 65 and over, living in Eskişehir, who received at least 24 points from the mini mental test, received health care at least once, and were willing to participate in the research. The data were collected with a questionnaire form, mini men- tal state test and the “The Scale of Perceiving the Attitudes of Health- care Professionals by Elderly” developed by the researcher. Results: The Cronbach alpha value of the scale of “Perceiving the Attitudes of Health Care Professionals of Elderly Individuals” was 0.83, and the Guttman Split-Half coefficient was 0.83. As a result of the exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, it was determined that the Scale of Perception of Attitudes of Healthcare Professionals by Elderly Indi- viduals consisted of 29 items and two sub-dimensions; these two fac- tors explained approximately 42.25% of the total variance; the cutoff point was found to be 1,610. Conclusion: With the present study, it’s determined that the scale is an appropriate tool to measure how health- care workers’ attitudes’re perceived by elderly individuals.