Validity and Reliability of the Korean version of the Communication Scale for Older Adults

Purpose: Aural rehabilitation has been used to reduce communication difficulties related to hearing loss and minimize their consequence in everyday life. Aural rehabilitation includes diagnosis and identification of hearing loss, provision of appropriate assistive listening devices such as hearing aids and cochlear implants, auditory training, speechreading, and communication strategies training. Communication strategies refer to a course of action taken to facilitate conversation interaction or to correct communication problems. Compared to other components of aural rehabilitation, communication strategies have not been focused on as a significant evaluation tool in spite of their importance in daily life. This study aimed to develop a Korean version of the Communication Scale for Older Adults (K-CSOA) originally designed by Kaplan et al. (1997) to evaluate the changes in communication strategies and attitudes.Methods: The K-CSOA was composed of communication strategies and communication attitudes. The Communication strategies have three subcategories of Facilitative (10 items), Repair (15 items), and Preparatory strategies (16 items). The communication attitudes have also three subcategories of Own Attitude (19 items), Family’s Attitude (7 items), and Others Attitude (5 items). The validity and reliability of K-CSOA were obtained with total sixty subjects consisting of thirty subjects with normal hearing and thirty subjects with different degrees of hearing loss with mean age of 72 years old ranging from 60 years old to 85 years old.Results: The validity and reliability of the K-CSOA were measured using Pearson`s correlation coefficient, Cronbach Alpha coefficient, and independent t-tests. The correlation coefficients were high (.502-.984) between total means of K-CSOA and subcategories of K-CSOA. The internal consistency ranged from .802 to .930 for Communication Strategies and from .620 to .962 for Communication Attitudes. The test-retest correlation of the K-CSOA was .986 and .988 for Communication Strategies and Attitudes, respectively. The correlation coefficient was .784 between the K-CSOA and Korean Hearing Handicap for the Elderly (KHHIE). In addition, there were significant differences in Communication Strategies and Communication Attitudes between the normal hearing and hearing loss groups.Conclusion: These results indicate that K-CSOA can be used as a useful clinical tool providing in-depth information regarding communication strategies and attitudes in Korean elderly people.