Translation and validation of the Greek version of an ageism scale for dental students (ASDS_Gr).

Objectives: To describe the validation of a new 27-item ageism scale for dental students in Greece.

Background: A new ageism scale for dental students has been developed by American and European Gerodontology educators and was preliminary validated in the United States.

Methods: The scale was translated into Greek and administered to 8th- and 10th-semester dental students in Athens. Principal components analysis was used to explore the internal structure of the measure; internal consistency reliability was assessed using Cronbach's α coefficient; corrected item-total correlations were calculated to decide which low contributing items should be removed from the scale; and discriminant validity was tested investigating variation in relation to demographic and educational factors.

Results: A total of 152 students responded to the questionnaire. The Principal component analysis offered a 15-item scale distributed into four factors that accounted for 56.4%, of the total variance, produced stronger factor loadings, a comparable amount of overall component variance and logical sets of components. The four factors produced were values/ethics about older people (four items, α = 0.71), patient compliance (four items, α = 0.72), barriers to dental care (four items, α = 0.57) and dentist-older patient interaction (three items, α = 0.64). Discriminant validity revealed statistically significant differences in factors and items related to semester of studies, gender and family's permanent residence.

Conclusion: The preliminary validation of the Greek version of the ageing scale for dental students revealed a 15-item questionnaire that demonstrated acceptable validity and reliability and could be further tested in larger samples.