Assessment of the quality and generalizability of the revised UCLA loneliness scale in Chinese and Korean community-dwelling elderly populations using item response theory (IRT)-Rasch modeling and hybrid IRT-logistic regression

ABSTRACT

Objectives: This study aims to test the dimensionality, reliability, and item quality of the revised UCLA loneliness scale as well as to investigate the differential item functioning (DIF) of the three dimensions of the revised UCLA loneliness scale in community-dwelling Chinese and Korean elderly individuals.

Method: Data from 493 elderly individuals (287 Chinese and 206 Korean) were used to examine the revised UCLA loneliness scale. The Research model based on item response theory (IRT) was used to test dimensionality, reliability, and item fit. The hybrid ordinal logistic regression-IRT test was used to evaluate DIF.

Results: Item separation reliability, person reliability, and Cronbach’s alpha met the benchmarks. The quality of the items in the three-dimension model met the benchmark. Eight items were detected as significant DIF items (at α < .01). The loneliness level of Chinese elderly individuals was significantly higher than that of Koreans in Dimensions 1 and 2, while Korean elderly participants showed significantly higher loneliness levels than Chinese participants in Dimension 3. Several collected demographic characteristics and loneliness levels were more highly correlated in Korean elderly individuals than in Chinese elderly individuals.

Conclusion: Analysis using the three dimensions is reasonable for the revised UCLA loneliness scale. Good item quality and the items of this measure suggest that the revised UCLA loneliness can be used to assess the preferred latent traits. Finally, the differences between the levels of loneliness in Chinese and Korean elderly individuals are associated with the factors of loneliness.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.