Awareness of age-related changes in Norwegian individuals 50+. Short form questionnaire validation

Abstract

BackgroundA questionnaire assessing awareness of positive and negative age-related changes (AARC gains and losses) was developed in the US and Germany, and validated for the UK and Brazilian populations. In this study, we validated the short-form measure (AARC-10 SF) in the Norwegian population aged 50 and over. In addition, the relationship between cognitive variables and AARC was examined.MethodsCross-sectional analyses of data from 1,510 participants in the ongoing online PROTECT Norge study were used to explore and confirm the two-factor structure of AARC gains and AARC losses; reliability; measurement invariance across different population groups defined by sex, education level, employment, and in middle age, early old age, and advanced old age. We explored the relationship between AARC and demographic variables (defined in the same way as the population groups).ResultsWe confirmed the two-factor structure (gains and losses) of the Norwegian translation of the AARC-10 SF. We did not find mutual correlations between related items in gains and losses, except for the physical health item from the gains dimension, which was positively correlated with all items of the losses dimension. Age, sex, marital status, employment, and university education predicted AARC gains and losses.ConclusionThe Norwegian translation of the AARC-10 SF captures individuals’ positive and negative self-perceptions of age-related changes in their mental, physical, and cognitive health.

Differences in self-perceptions of aging across the adult lifespan: The sample case of awareness of age-related gains and losses.

“…Nevertheless, valid comparison of AARC-Gains across all three age groups could be safeguarded by either linking age groups using specific sets of anchor items (Edwards & Wirth, 2009) or relaxing the less realistic assumption of exact MI to allow for practically negligible variability of item parameters. This is in line with previous findings of metric invariance of AARC-Gains and AARC-Losses scales irrespective of the already vastly different contexts of development across midlife, old age, and very old age (Kaspar et al, 2019; Sabatini et al, 2020; Testad et al, 2022). However, our expectation of a rather global “positive” response bias of older adults, potentially due to a larger number of past aging experiences, higher salience of age-related changes, and interpretation of respective changes as normative, was only partly supported, because older adults were more or less strongly inclined to endorse gain- and loss-indicators, depending on specific item content.…”

“…Kaspar et al (2019) presented evidence of metric invariance (i.e., comparable factor loadings of the items and, hence, comparability of factor variances and scale units) of the AARC-10-SF scales across age groups of individuals in midlife (40-69 years), early old age (70-79 years), and advanced old age (80+ years). Further evidence of equivalence of the concept of AARC across age groups has since also been reported in British and Norwegian samples of individuals aged 50 or older (Sabatini et al, 2020;Testad et al, 2022). O'Brien and Sharifian (2020) reported adequate reliability of AARC-Gains This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.…”

“…With respect to the two-dimensionality of AARC measurement in terms of AARC-Gains and AARC-Losses, Neri et al (2021) presented evidence of factorial invariance of the gains and losses dimensions in young old (60-69 years) and old-old (70+ years) Brazilians based on split-sample confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses (CFA, EFA). Testad et al (2022) reported the first evidence of a potentially more complex pattern of factor loadings of the twodimensional scale in an age-diverse (50+) Norwegian sample. Most studies, however, have reported adequate fit of multigroup CFA models, thereby suggesting factorial invariance of the theoretically implied structure (Kaspar et al, 2019(Kaspar et al, , 2022Sabatini et al, 2020;Zhang & Wood, 2022).…”

“…For the AARC-10-SF, a positive age bias (i.e., participants aged 70–79 years chose higher response categories more readily than participants aged 40–69) was observed for both gains and losses and with respect to every behavioral domain (Kaspar et al, 2019). However, because multiple studies showed reasonable support for the invariance of intercepts of the AARC-10-SF across age groups in their samples of adults aged 50 years and older (Sabatini et al, 2020; Testad et al, 2022), it remains unclear if potential differences are restricted to the youngest adults considered so far and if responses in young adulthood might be even less comparable.…”

Levels of awareness of age-related gains and losses throughout adulthood and their developmental correlates.

“…Diehl, Brothers, & Wahl, 2021). To assess AARC, a questionnaire exists in several versions of different length, but the most widely used is the 10-item short form (AARC-10-SF; Kaspar et al, 2019; Neri et al, 2021; Testad et al, 2022; Zhang & Wood, 2022). This short form contains five items assessing AARC-gains and five items assessing AARC-losses.…”