Volume 14, Issue 1 (Spring 2019)                   Salmand: Iranian Journal of Ageing 2019, 14(1): 40-51 | Back to browse issues page


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Jahanpour M, Mohaqeqi Kamal S H, Hosseinzadeh S, Sajjadi H, Basakha M. Designing and Validation of a Living Standards Questionnaire in Tehran’s Elderly Community. Salmand: Iranian Journal of Ageing 2019; 14 (1) :40-51
URL: http://salmandj.uswr.ac.ir/article-1-1410-en.html
1- Department of Social Welfare, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
2- Social Welfare Management Research Center, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran. , hosseinmohaqeq@gmail.com
3- Department of Biostatistics, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
4- Social Welfare Management Research Center, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
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Extended Abstract
1. Objectives

The aging phenomenon poses serious concerns to the sustainability of economic growth and development in developed and developing countries, especially Iran [1]. Therefore, attention to this age group and the efforts to solve their problems, especially in terms of social wellbeing, are essential for any society [2]. Social wellbeing creates a sense of security and mutual trust in the present and future of mankind which is especially necessary for the elderly [3]. Social wellbeing implies both mental and objective aspects [4]. Living standards are considered among the main indicators of objective wellbeing in any society; however, in Iran, no standard tool has been introduced to measure this concept. Therefore, we attempted to design a questionnaire for measuring living standards and evaluate its psychometric properties in the Iranian population.
2. Methods and Materials
This was a methodological study. The concept of living standards was first studied based on theoretical foundations, including the World Bank and United Nations sources. Then, this concept and its various dimensions were assessed based on 9 existing international questionnaires. The first version of Living Standards Questionnaire (LSQ) had 45 items assessing the dimensions of education, housing, social security, income level, leisure time, nutrition, and living facilities. To assess its content validity, the questionnaire was provided to 10 specialists to examine the relevance of each question to the current Iranian culture. At that stage, 9 questions were omitted due to the lack of acceptable content validity ratio; thus, 36 questions remained. In the next step, Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) with varimax rotation was used to investigate the construct validity of LSQ. 
As a result, of 36 questions, 13 were analyzed due to their qualitative nature, and factor analysis was performed on the 23 remaining questions. After determining the validity, the questionnaire was distributed among 150 elderly people aged ≥60 who were selected based on convenience sampling method from 22 districts of Tehran City, Iran. In addition to LSQ, a checklist was used to survey gender, age, marital status and the place of residence. For reliability evaluation, internal consistency reliability and split-half reliability were tested using Cronbach's alpha and Guttman coefficient, respectively. The obtained data were analyzed in SPSS. This study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences (code: USWR.REC.1395.245).
3. Results
The Mean±SD age of study participants was 63.74±2.99 years. Most of them were married. The content validity test results revealed a validity coefficient of 0.85. In terms of the construct validity of LSQ, the result of EFA analysis using the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin test suggested a value of 0.853. Of 23 remaining items, 6 items (i.e. housing cost, the duration of last travel, accommodation type in the last travel, the average cost of the last party, the average cost of eating out, and vehicle fares) were omitted. This was because the answers to these questions were subject to the answers given to the previous questions (yes/no) where most answers were “no”. Eventually, the EFA was conducted on 17 items. The cumulative percentage of the first three factors (living facilities, housing situation, and household expenses) was equal to 56.86%. 
The 14 other items only explained 43.14% of the changes in living standards. “Living facilities” included questions related to educational level, the socioeconomic class of residential area, income level, supply costs in adverse conditions, income adequacy for basic needs, the ability to purchase favorites, recreation and traveling within the country, recreation and traveling out of the country,  the frequency of throwing parties, the frequency of eating out, and employment status. The factor “housing situation” consisted of questions related to the floor area, the number of rooms, the age of the building, and the type of home ownership. Moreover, the factor “household expenses” included questions related to the average cost of living and family size. The internal consistency reliability results of LSQ reported a Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.859; additionally, for its split-half reliability, a Guttman coefficient of 0.848 was obtained, which are acceptable values.
4. Conclusion
The final version of LSQ consisted of 17 items and 4 scales of education, housing, income level, and leisure time. The questionnaire had a validity coefficient of 0.85. Moreover, its split-half reliability was reported as 0.848 and its Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the whole questionnaire was equal to 0.859. These values indicated its good psychometric properties. Therefore, this questionnaire can be used as an appropriate tool for assessing living standards among the aging population in Iran.
Ethical Considerations
Compliance with ethical guidelines
This article followed the 31 principles of ethics in research (including informed consent of participants, confidentiality of participants' information, full explanation of research objectives, the ability to answer questions and social and cultural considerations) and has ethics code of IR.USWR.REC.1395.245 from the Research Ethics Committee, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Funding
This article was extracted from Mina Jahanpour's MSc. thesis of Department of Social Welfare in University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences.
Authors contributions
Conceptualization and Methodology: Mina Jahanpour, Seyed Hossein Mohaqeqi Kamal, Homeira Sajjadi, Mehdi Basakha; Methodology: Seyed Hossein Mohaqeqi Kamal, Samaneh Hosseinzadeh, Mehdi Basakha, Analysis: Mina Jahanpour, Samaneh Hosseinzadeh; Writing and editing: Mina Jahanpour, Seyed Hossein Mohaqeqi Kamal, Mehdi Basakha.
Conflict of interest
The authors declared no conflict of interest.
Type of Study: Research | Subject: gerontology
Received: 2018/08/25 | Accepted: 2019/01/02 | Published: 2019/04/01

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