Self-Efficacy for Meaningful Activities Scale: Finding meaning in the active aging

• Autor(a) principal: Oliveira, Albertina
• Data de Publicação: 2016
• Outros Autores: Lima, Margarida Pedroso de, Portugal, Patrícia
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.7342/ismt.rpics.2016.2.1.28
• topic: Self-efficacy; Activity; Older adults; Active aging; Self-efficacy for Meaningful Activities Scale; Autoeficácia; Atividade; Adultos idosos; Envelhecimento ativo; Escala de Autoeficácia para a Atividade com Sentido

Aims: This article aims to deepen the psychometric study of the Self-Efficacy for Meaningful Activities Scale (EAASentido) through reliability and validity analyses. The scale was developed under the theoretical constructs of self-efficacy, self-directed learning and meaning factors of older people within the context of the European project PALADIN and was intended to be a useful device for the assessment of the confidence of seniors for getting involved by themselves with meaning activities. Method: A sample of 503 seniors and older people from the North and Centre regions of Portugal was studied with a mean age of 71.66 (ranging from 51 to 96 years old). The subjects answered to the following scales and questionnaires: Self-Efficacy for Meaningful Activities Scale, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, Positive Affect and Negative Affect Scale, Satisfaction With Life Scale, Meaning in Life Questionnaire, Self-Efficacy for Self-Direction in Health Scale and Instrumental Activities of Daily Living. Results: An internal consistency of 0.94 was obtained (alpha of Cronbach) and the construct validity showed very good indicators. Concerning principal components analysis, three dimensions emerged from the data and not the five initially conceptualized: 1) activities of personal development and social participation, 2) instrumental activities, and 3) spiritual/religious activities. Resulting from the principal components analysis, we propose the reformulation of the scale, eliminating five complex items. The final 15 items still showed very good reliability (0.92). Conclusions: Based on the results obtained we can conclude that the Scale with 15 items is a consistent and adequate measure to assess to what extent older people have confidence in their ability to get involved in several meaningful activities by themselves. The scale shows good construct validity. However in future studies it is suggested to continue the evaluation of its dimensional structure notably through confirmatory factor analyses.