Cross-cultural adaptation of the sinhala version of Kogan’s attitudes toward older people scale

Abstract

Providing effective care for older people is affected by nurses’ attitudes toward older people. Kogan’s Attitudes Toward Older People scale (KAOP) is widely used in determining attitudes toward older people. A culturally adapted tool that assesses attitudes toward older people is unavailable in Sri Lanka. This paper reports the cross-cultural adaptation process of developing the Sinhala Version of KAOP. Following the Beaton et al. method, translation and cross-cultural adaptation, consisting of the phases of forward translation, synthesis of translation, backward translation, and pre-test was conducted. The original version of KAOP consists of 34 items. Two independent bilingual translators who had a background in geriatric nursing and nursing education translated the English versions of KAOP into Sinhala. The research team synthesised the common forward translation. Two language experts who were fluent in both English and Sinhala languages conducted the back translations, independently. The research team, forward and backward translators, two nurse academics and one medical doctor reviewed original and forward and backward translations to ensure conceptual, semantic and idiomatic equivalence. Based on a panel of experts’ review, the content validity index (CVI) was computed. The panel included one medical doctor, one social worker, three nurses and five nurse academics. Eight nursing students participated in pre-test of the questionnaire, ensuring face validity. Cross-cultural validity of the Si-KAOP scale was established by conceptual, semantic and idiomatic equivalence with the English version. Item-CVIs ranged from 0.8 -1. Scale-CVI was 0.88. Minor changes in the pre-test were incorporated into the scale. The pre-final version of the KAOP was developed with adequate cross-cultural, face and content validity. The establishment of the psychometric properties of the Si- KAOP is required.