Cely D. Magpantay | Mary Ann Sunga-vargas
Discipline: Health Education
Introduction Life value should also be considered in an elderly person with dementia, aside from the medical attention. An assessment of the quality of life will provide a substantial impact in the clinical practice, disease severity, and evaluation of treatment outcomes provided for this condition. In the Philippines, the use of a self-constructed instrument to assess the quality of life specifically among this group is very limited; hence developing a culturally sensitive quality of life measure was the thrust of this study.
Methods The research utilized test construction methodology to develop the Quality of Life of Filipino Elderly with Dementia (QoL-FD) tool. In the item generation stage, a multi-source approach was done utilizing in-depth interviews with elderly with dementia, caregivers, a neurologist and other health allied practitioners specializing in dementia. The draft underwent face validation by the experts and was administered to a sample of 5 patients in a private hospital's memory clinic. The final form of Quality of Life of Filipino Elderly with Dementia (QoL-FD) tool was pretested in a sample of 211 community-dwelling elderly in a city in the metropolitan area.
Results From the pool of samples, 20 elderly were diagnosed to have mild to moderate level of dementia. During the preliminary testing, the items generated convergent validity with WHOQOL BREF. To test the internal reliability, a Spearman Brown formula and Cronbach's alpha coefficient were computed and showed that it was a valid and reliable instrument.
Conclusion In the final form, the tool had a validity value with Pearson r of 0.90, split half reliability value using Spearman Brown formula of 0.92 and Cronbach's alpha of 0.90. Thus, the QoL-FD is a psychometrically sound instrument for measuring quality of life.
ISSN 2244-4378 (Print)
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