Purpose: For older adults, psychological adjustment has a great impact on successfully making the transition to living in a nursing home. However, a tailored Nursing Home Adjustment Scale (NHAS) for Chinese nursing home residents is not available. The aim of this study was to develop and psychometrically test properties of the NHAS for Chinese residents.
Methods: A total of 425 residents were recruited from 10 nursing homes from September 2017 to February 2018 in Fujian, China, to examine the psychometrics of the NHAS Chinese version. exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM) was applied to evaluate the NHAS scale. Internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and construct validity were examined.
Results: The final structure for the NHAS was categorized into five domains, including emotional distress, relationship development, acceptance of new residence, depressed mood, and feeling at home. The goodness-of-fit indices of ESEM supported the five-factor model with satisfactory internal consistency (Cronbach's α = 0.87) and test-retest reliability of 0.72 for the entire scale.
Conclusions: The Chinese version of the NHAS is a reliable and valid instrument to assess the level of nursing home adjustment among nursing home residents in China.
Keywords: Factor analysis; Instrument development; Nursing home adjustment.