Abstract
INTRODUCTION: The Social Adaptation Self-evaluation Scale (SASS) is used to measure social function and social motivation in depressed patients. There is little attention to social function in the treatment of depression. The aim of this study was to assess the validity and reliability of the Persian version of SASS (P-SASS) for older adults. PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS: This is a cross-sectional and methodological study. The participants were 550 community-dwelling older adults living in Tehran who were selected randomly from the primary health care centers. To assess the psychometric properties of SASS, we first did translation and cross-cultural adjustment on SASS and then used P-SASS and the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) for gathering data. A number of analyses, including Pearson's correlation, exploratory factor analysis, and Cronbach's α, and receiver operating characteristic curve were used to manage the data with the IBM SPSS Statistics V.22. RESULTS: The mean age of the participants was 66.09±6.67 years, and 58.9% of them were male. The Cronbach's α was 0.97. The test-retest reliability correlation coefficient was 0.78. Principal component analysis showed that P-SASS consists of two components. P-SASS score showed a significant negative correlation with GDS (r=-0.91, P<0.01), which suggests good convergent validity. The P-SASS cutoff point was 28 (sensitivity: 0.97 and specificity: 0.94). CONCLUSION: P-SASS has good reliability and validity for older adults. So, it can be considered as an appropriate tool to evaluate the social function and social motivation of older persons with and without depression.