The validity and reliability of Turkish form of vulnerable elders survey

Aim of this study is to determine whether the Turkish version of the Vulnerable Elders Survey is reliable and valid for Turkish society. This study was planned by means of a methodological research approach, and during the study, the VES-13 survey was adapted to Turkish language and its language reliability was evaluated. The survey was conducted in the Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Policlinics of Gaziantep University between January 2017 and April 2017, and it was applied to 242 patients aging 74 or more. In order to collect data, the socio-demographic Form, the Vulnerable Elder Survey, the Katz Activity of Daily Life and the Lawton&Brody Instrumental Activity of Daily Life surveys were used. Data was gathered through in-person method. The socio-demographic and clinical properties of the elderly patients were evaluated in terms of means, numbers and percentages. For the language validity of the survey, the method of translating and back translating was used, and for content validity, the opinions of some experts were analyzed with the Kendall coefficient of concordance (Kendall's = 0.435, p>0.05). For the construct validity of the survey, exploratory factor analysis was applied. For the reliability of the survey, cronbach's alpha reliability coefficients were computed. The Cronbach's alfa value of the survey is 0.85, and the Cronbach alfa values of the items of the survey vary between 0.82-0.85. The cross item analysis of the survey is significantly high, and its values vary between 0.33 and 0.72. In addition, for the validity of the applicants, Kaiser-Meyen-Olkin analysis was applied and p < 0.05 was considered to be significant in statistical analyses. Considering the results of the survey, it was found out that the adapted version of the VES-13 could be valid and reliable for Turkish citizens and that the VES-13 could be used for the evaluation of elderly Turkish citizens.