designing and psychometric properties of elderly cognitive empowerment questionnaire of individual changes

Background: Considering the growing elderly population and reducing their physical and mental abilities, and higher frequency of chronic diseases, attention to their empowerment is considered a necessity. So, the aim of this study was to designing and psychometric properties of elderly cognitive empowerment questionnaire of individual changes. Material and Methods: In this methodologic study, 294 elderly aged 60-70 years were studied by using a convenience sampling method in Bushehr city. Waltz 2010 was used to design the questionnaire. According to targeted literature review and available documents about the empowerment of the elderly, the initial version of the questionnaire was designed with 42 items. After confirming the content validity of questionnaire by 10 medical specialists, exploratory factor analysis was performed using the construct validity. Its reliability was determined by calculating Cronbach's alpha coefficient and test re-test. To analyze the data, SPSS version 18 was used. Results: The first version of the questionnaire cognitive empowerment of individual changes were designed with 42 items. In the process of psychometric evaluation no item were removed during the validity of the content. Content validity index and content validity ratio was calculated 0.82 and 0.95 respectively. Based on the exploratory factor analysis, the number of the questionnaire items was reduced to 32 and dimensions of empowerment were classified in the eight factors as physical abilities, self-respect, spirituality, commitment, performance role, positional identification, self-management and self-assessment which can predict with 75.787 %. Internal reliability of the questionnaire dimensions were ranged from 0.62-0.84 and external reliability was 0.96. Conclusion: Due to the appropriate reliability and validity of the questionnaire cognitive empowerment, applying it in training centers, treatment and rehabilitation centers is recommended to evaluate the cognitive empowerment of seniors to verify their requisites and offering qualitative services to them.