Cross-cultural adaptation of assessments for time-related abilities of Indian older adults and evaluation of their reliability and validity.

BACKGROUND: Older adults may have difficulties in daily time management due to age-related or disease-related cognitive impairment. Standardised assessments for time-related abilities are currently unavailable in India.

AIM: The study aimed to adapt the Kit for Assessing Time-processing Ability-Senior (KaTid-Senior) and Time-Self rating, Senior (Time-S Senior) for daily time management of Indian older adults, translate these into an Indian language, and evaluate the reliability and validity of the adapted assessments.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: The two Swedish-origin assessments were reviewed, adapted for linguistic and cultural relevance into English, and translated into Kannada language. Older adults ( n  = 128) were conveniently selected, assessed with the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, and assigned to age and gender-matched groups: cognitively-impaired and cognitively-normal. Data was then collected with the adapted assessments.

RESULTS: Both adapted assessments demonstrated acceptable reliability (internal consistency) in this sample (α =0.89 - 0.90). The cognitively-impaired group had significantly ( p < 0.001) lower scores on the assessments as compared to the cognitively-normal group. There was a strong to moderate correlation between the assessments supporting their convergent validity.

CONCLUSIONS: The adapted assessments are reliable and valid in the Indian context.

SIGNIFICANCE: The study would facilitate contextually-relevant assessment and management of time-related abilities in Indian older adults.