RIS ID
114182
Abstract
Objectives: Children may have a foundational role in efforts to raise community awareness about dementia. There is some qualitative work with children with a relative with dementia, but little work into the insights of children as general citizens without affected family. One issue is an absence of measurement tools; thus the study aimed to design and pilot a psychometrically sound self-report measure of dementia attitudes for children.
Method: Using a multi-staged scale development process, stakeholder and expert input informed a 52-item Kids Insight into Dementia Survey (KIDS). After a pretest of KIDS with 21 Australian schoolchildren aged 10-12 years, exploratory factor analysis and reliability and validity testing were run on a revised KIDS with data from 203 similar-aged schoolchildren.
Results: The KIDS was reduced from 52 to 14 items, and a three-factor solution identified: 'Personhood', 'Stigma', and 'Dementia Understanding'. A strong positive correlation with an adult measure of dementia attitudes (r = .76) and a moderate positive correlation with a child measure of attitudes towards older adults (r = .47) indicated good concurrent validity. Internal consistency of .83 indicated good reliability.
Conclusion: Results support the use of KIDS as a tool to measure children's insight into dementia, and to evaluate dementia education initiatives targeting the youth.
Publication Details
Baker, J. R., Low, L., Goodenough, B., Jeon, Y., Tsang, R. S. M., Bryden, C. & Hutchinson, K. (2018). The Kids Insight into Dementia Survey (KIDS): development and preliminary psychometric properties. Aging and Mental Health, 22 (8), 953-959.