Abstract

The authors developed the 'Geriatric Quality of Life scale(GQOL)' to assess the quality of life in the geriatric group, considering the quality of life domains specific to the geriatric group and the limitation in the cognitive functioning of the geriatric group. The present study was intended to standardize GQOL and to testify the reliability and validity of GQOL. The standardization sample was composed of 340 old people who were all over 55 years of age and physically and mentally normal. In the results, the internal consistency such as Cronbach's α and item-total correlation was good, and the test-retest reliability revealed the stability across time. Criterion validity was revealed by high correlation between each item and global quality of life item, and adequate correlation between GQOL and scales assessing cognition, psychological wellbeing, behavior and activities of daily living included in this study according to the quality of life profile convinced convergent validity. In the result of factor analysis, 4 factors with a variance percentage of 48.7% were extracted, and factors were termed by physical health, psychological health, social relationship/economic state, and environment. When GQOL was administrated to normal old people, there were significant differences according to sex, age, educational level and region, and the norm considering sex and age was framed. In this study, it was confirmed that there is no difficulty for old people to carry out GQOL, and this is suggestive that GQOL will be useful in research and clinical practice.