Elderly person-environment adaptation scale: Scale development, validity and reliability study

Purpose: To develop the Person-Environment Adaptation Scale for Elderly Individuals by holistically considering environmental characteristics that will affect the living environment and well-being of the elderly, such as home and living environment characteristics, individual financial capacity and neighborhood characteristics, social networks, and mobility. In this way, it is aimed to contribute to the literature and national research on the subject with a scale that can measure individual-environment adaptation. Method: Accordin to the aim of the research, the information obtained by scanning Turkish and english literature was evaluated and the characteristics that could explain the adaptation of the individual to the environment were listed. Based on these features, a question pool of 66 items was created. In line with the expert evaluations made for the content validity of the scale and the factor analyzes made for the construct validity, the scale with 28 question propositions was finalized from the 66-item question proposition. Findings: By applying the scale consisting of 28 items and five sub-dimensions on the sample group, it was concluded that the scale could explain %64,68 of the total variance and the Cronbach's Alpha value obtained through reliability analysis was 0.94. In addition, factor loadings, correlation analysis and fit values of the sub-dimensions of the scale were examined. Conclusion: It is thought that the created scale will support the findings obtained by applying it on different sample groups and this research can add a valuable contribution to the field. Key Words: Old Age, Older Person-Environment Compatibility Scale Development