Content validity of the Geriatric Health Assessment Instrument

OBJECTIVE: Assess the content validity of the Elderly Health Assessment Tool with low education. METHODS: The data collection instrument/questionnaire was prepared and submitted to an expert panel comprising four healthcare professionals experienced in research on epidemiology of aging. The experts were allowed to suggest item inclusion/exclusion and were asked to rate the ability of individual items in questionnaire blocks to encompass target dimensions as “not valid”, “somewhat valid” or “valid”, using an interval scale. Percent agreement and the Content Validity Index were used as measurements of inter-rater agreement; the minimum acceptable inter-rater agreement was set at 80%. RESULTS: The mean instrument percent agreement rate was 86%, ranging from 63 to 99%, and from 50 to 100% between and within blocks respectively. The Mean Content Validity Index score was 93.47%, ranging from 50 to 100% between individual items. CONCLUSION: The instrument showed acceptable psychometric properties for application in geriatric populations with low levels of education. It enabled identifying diseases and assisted in choice of strategies related to health of the elderly.