Researches on Reliability and Validity of some Mental Health Measures for the Elderly Peaple / 中国临床心理学杂志

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to ascertain the usefullness of four mental health measures in their application to Chinese elderly subjects. These measures which included CES—D, GHQ—30, LSI, and MST were adapted to assess general symptoms of depression and minor psychiatic disorder, life satisfaction, and mental state of the elderly people. Results of these findings indicated that split—half and test—retest reliabilities of these measures were highly satisfactory. With respect to validity, test performace of a group of psychiatric patients (N=31) and normal elderly subjects (N=30) were found to be significantly differencetiated. Furthermore, the pattern of scores obtained by the psychiatric patients also matched well with the clinical diagnosis made by a consultant. Normative data in an old—old sample (N=554) revealed mild to moderate correlations between measures, reflecting favourably on their convergent validity. Significant sex differences were found, which necessitated the establishment of separate norms for males and females subjects.