Construction and Validation the Healthy Lifestyle Questionnaire Among the Iranian Elderly Who Receive Home Care Services

Objectives: Investigating the elderly's lifestyle conditions is a challenging issue, due to various factors influencing lifestyle. The current study was developed to explore the construct and validity of the Healthy Lifestyle Questionnaire (HLQ) among the Iranian elderly who receive home care services. Methods & Materials: This combinatory, sequential exploratory study was conducted for creating a lifestyle measuring tool among the elderly in Tehran City, Iran, in 2018. The research was performed in 4 steps including the following: studying semi-structured texts and interviews (the elderly & specialists); extracting fields and factors related to lifestyle; validity examination, and the final assessment on the target community (reliability). To check the validity, ratio tests were implemented by the expert's panel (n=20 in 8 different specialty fields related to the elderly's treatment). Besides, Cronbach's alpha coefficient was implemented to check the scale’s reliability (n=40). SPSS was also used for the statistical analysis of the collected data. Results: The agreed limit for the Content Validity Ratio (CVR) was selected as 42% according to the specialist's number. Accordingly, out of 130 extracted questions, only 69 questions, CVR point was more than the agreed limit (CVR≥0.42). Thus, the remained question's CVR point equaled 52.5, by dividing it by the number of remained questions. CVI was calculated to be 0.76 for the whole questionnaire. Moreover, CVI was more than the agreed limit for all the questions in 11 fields (CVI≥0.76). Lifestyle’s Cronbach's alpha coefficient (0.979) was >0.7. Conclusion: The Elderly's Healthy Lifestyle Questionnaire (EHLSQ) has appropriate reliability and validity for assessing lifestyle in the elderly. It can be used to evaluate lifestyle among the elderly in various studies.

Home care for older people

Older people receive home care either by choice or because alternative means of care are not available. The reasons for home care have an economic and cultural component; most of it is provided on a voluntary basis, regardless of the culture of the older person. Good home care, however, should not be left entirely to volunteers, but should be supported by the state through legislation and social policies, especially in the area of primary care and health promotion, as should end-of-life care. By these means some of the negative effects of home care on the recipient and the carer can be reduced.