Nurses' knowledge and attitudes towards aged sexuality: validity and internal consistency of the Dutch version of the Aging Sexual Knowledge and Attitudes Scale

AIM: This paper reports a study testing the content and face validity and internal consistency of the Dutch version of the Aging Sexual Knowledge and Attitudes Scale. BACKGROUND: The ability of older residents to sexually express themselves is known to be influenced by the knowledge and attitudes of nursing home staff towards later-life sexuality. Although the Aging Sexual Knowledge and Attitudes Scale is a widely used instrument to measure this, there is no validated, Dutch translation available. DESIGN: Instrument development. METHOD: Following a standard forward/backward translation into Dutch, the scale was further adapted for use in Flemish nursing home settings. Content and face validity and user-friendliness were assessed. The psychometric properties were determined by means of an exploratory study. Data were collected from March-April 2011 at eight Flemish nursing homes. Reliability was assessed using internal consistency and item-total correlations. RESULTS: Both subscales of the Flemish adaptation showed acceptable content validity. The face validity and user-friendliness were deemed favourable with hardly any remarks given by the expert panel. The Cronbach's α was 0.80 and 0.88 for the knowledge and attitude subscales, respectively. The item-total correlations ranged from 0.21-0.48 for the knowledge section and from 0.09-0.68 for the attitude subscale. CONCLUSION: We conclude from our study that the Dutch version of the scale has acceptable to good psychometric properties. The Flemish adaptation therefore seems to be a valuable instrument for studying nursing staff's knowledge and attitudes towards aged sexuality in Flanders.