Measuring the social climate of congregate residences for older people: Sheltered Care Environment Scale.
We developed the Sheltered Care Environment Scale (SCES) to provide researchers and practitioners with a practical means of assessing the social climate in congregate residential settings for the elderly. The SCES, a 63-item yes/no questionnaire that can be completed by residents and staff members of a facility, taps their perceptions of seven dimensions of the social environment. These dimensions concern the quality of relationships, the personal growth orientation present in the facility, and maintenance and change of the social system. The SCES discriminates among settings, has moderate to high internal consistency and split-half reliability, and is sensitive to environmental change against a backdrop of relative stability over time. The SCES reflects actual, agreed-on qualities of a setting and is relatively unaffected by characteristics of the respondent. Normative data are available from a national sample of 244 facilities representing the variety of residential settings available to the elderly.
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Social Ecology Laboratory Veterans Administration Medical Center, Palo Alto, California 94304.
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D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000368:Aged / Q000523:psychology*; D006707:Homes for the Aged; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D009735:Nursing Homes; D011581:Psychological Tests; D011788:Quality of Life; D012931:Social Environment