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Psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Geriatric Anxiety Inventory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 August 2011

María Márquez-González ,
Andrés Losada ,
Virginia Fernández-Fernández  and
Nancy A. Pachana
María Márquez-González*
Affiliation:
Departamento de Psicología Biológica y de la Salud, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Andrés Losada
Affiliation:
Departamento de Psicología, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, Spain
Virginia Fernández-Fernández
Affiliation:
Departamento de Psicología, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, Spain
Nancy A. Pachana
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
*
Correspondence should be addressed to: María Márquez-González, Facultad de Psicología. Departamento de Psicología Biológica y de la Salud. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain, 28049. Email: maria.marquez@uam.es.
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Abstract

Background: The Geriatric Anxiety Inventory (GAI) was developed for assessing anxiety in older adults. The objectives of this work were: (a) to analyze the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the GAI, and (b) to explore the associations between anxiety and other variables related to emotional distress (depression) and emotion regulation (rumination, experiential avoidance, and emotion suppression).

Methods: Three-hundred-and-two people (75.5% female) aged 60 years and over living in the community participated in this study. Anxiety, depression, rumination, suppression and experiential avoidance were measured.

Results: Three factors explaining 50.11% of the variance were obtained. The obtained internal consistency for the total scale was 0.91, with alphas ranging between 0.71 and 0.89 for the factors. Significant associations between all the GAI factors, the GAI total score, and depression, rumination, and experiential avoidance were found (all p < 0.01). Women reported higher scores than men for both the GAI total score and for all of the subscales. However, no significant gender differences were found between people with scores higher than the cut-off score for the GAI.

Conclusions: The results of this study suggest that the Spanish version of the GAI displays good psychometric properties. Further, our data suggest that the scale can be recommended for measuring anxiety in non-clinical older Spanish persons, and may be a useful instrument to be used in research studies aimed at analyzing anxiety and its correlates among older adults.

Keywords

anxietyassessmentelderlyfactor analysisemotion regulation
Type
Research Article
Information
International Psychogeriatrics , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , January 2012 , pp. 137 - 144
Copyright
Copyright © International Psychogeriatric Association 2011

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