Designing a Happiness Questionnaire for the Elderly in Iran and Determining Its Psychometric Properties

• Main Authors: Mahboubeh Heravi, Mohammad Hatami, Hassan Ahadi
• Format: Article
• Language: fas
• Published: University of Social Welfare & Rehabilitation Sciences 2020-10-01
• Series: Sālmand
• Subjects: elderly; happiness; questionnaire; psychometrics; iran
• Online Access: http://salmandj.uswr.ac.ir/article-1-1847-en.html

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to design a questionnaire for assessing happiness in the elderly based on Iranian culture and then determine its psychometric properties. Methods & Materials: This is a methodological study conducted from May 2018 to June 2019. It was conducted through four phases recommended by Schneider et al. (2004). In the first phase, content analysis was carried out to explore the meaning of happiness in the elderly. In the second phase, the components of happiness were extracted by reviewing related papers, measurement tools, and interviewing the participants. An initial draft was prepared by using the results of the first and second phases and according to the opinions of experts. In the third phase, the validity (face, content, and construct) was measured. In the final phase, internal consistency and test-retest reliability were measured by participation of 304 older adults who were selected randomly.  Results: The initial draft had 77 items, reduced to 39 items after measuring its face and content validity. The result of exploratory factor analysis reported 5 acceptable factors including human rights, enjoyable life, good mood, health, and spirituality. These factors explained about 70.49% of the total variance. The results of known-groups comparisons showed that this questionnaire could successfully discriminate between the elderly subgroups in terms of gender and education. The internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha) was reported 0.838-0.950, and the test-retest reliability using intraclass correlation coefficient was reported 0.95 at a two-week interval (P<0.001). Conclusion: The designed 39-item questionnaire is a valid and reliable tool and can be used on the community-dwelling older adults in Iran by the health care providers, psychologists and researchers to measure their happiness.