Psychometric properties of the CASP-12 in a Spanish older community dwelling sample.

Abstract

Current studies have shown that older people ́s Quality of Life (QoL) is more associated to individual ́s sense of happiness and subjective life satisfaction than to objective problems, such as physical functioning. CASP scale conceptualizes QoL based in a psycho-sociological perspective. Originally it consisted of 19 items (four factors: control, autonomy, self-realization and pleasure; the first letter of each factor were joined to create the acronym, CASP), but Wiggins, Netuvelli, Hyde, Higgs and Blane (2008) proposed a shorter version including 12 items and three factors (control combined with autonomy, pleasure and self-realization). Objective and methods. The aim of this study was to assess the structure of the CASP- 12 SHARE version using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) in a sample of 1,108 people aged 60 years and over. We checked the CASP structures traditionally proposed (one-dimensional, four dimension first-order factor and second order factor model) and tested, for the first time, the three domains model proposed by Wiggins et al. (2008) with the objective of constructing a model with acceptable fit to the data that also retains the theoretical value of the scale. Results. The three factor model (1) pleasure, 2) self-realization and 3) autonomy and control) showed a good overall fit (CFI=.932; TLI=.912; RMSEA=.067). An adequate internal consistency was also obtained. Conclusion. This is the first study that explored the psychometric properties and validated a well-fitting three factor structure proposed by Wiggins and cols (2008) for the CASP-12 in a large population sample of older people from Spain. The results of the current study support a multidimensional model for the CASP-12 composed by three factors. The CASP-12 has potential to be used as a multidimensional tool to assess QoL in older people.