Development and Validation of a Checklist to Assess the Elderly Attitude toward the Environmental Indicators (EA-EIs) of Nursing Home Facilities

Abstract

Abstract Introduction Long term care public centers have not been fully established in Iran; elderly patients still cannot obtain the necessary care in their community. The main aim of this study was to develop and validate a checklist for assessing the elderly attitude toward the environmental indicators of public long-term care facilities. Method The tool contains 46 items across six domains developed through semi-structured interviews with the elderly attending public places across the city. In total, 400 elderly patients aged ≥60 years living in Ilam city selected through purposive sampling design. Six subscales, including medical facilities, health facilities, welfare, independence, control, and human relation, were driven. The elderly's attitude toward the environmental indicators of long-term care facilities checklist (EA-EIs) internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and factorial validity was analyzed. Results Explanatory factor analysis confirmed the presumed theoretical model correctly and the following six factors identified through the tool: (a) medical facilities (7 items), (b) health facilities (4 items), (c) welfare (14 items), (d) independence (10 items), (e) control (7 items), and (f) human relation (4 items). Internal consistency yielded high Cronbach alpha values for all six domains and the total overall, suggesting a stable and reliable measure. Two weeks of test-retest reliability for the tool found to be acceptable. Conclusion The present study provides preliminary evidence that (EA-EIS) is a reliable and valid instrument to the efficient assessment of elderly attitude toward the environmental indicators of public nursing home facilities. This instrument should be valuable for public health research as well as health service use.