title: Measuring aggression in older adults: a latent variable modeling approach.
abstract: This cross-sectional measurement study demonstrates a technique for combining information from several aggression scales into one aggression score using latent variable modeling. Participants included male patients (n = 49) with a DSM-IV diagnosis of dementia at The Veterans Affairs Medical Center Outpatient Geriatric Psychiatry Clinic. Data from seven aggression scales were used to indicate the latent aggression variable. Results provided evidence that a unidimensional latent variable model of aggression adequately represented the data. Reliability of the aggression latent variable was estimated as 0.90, whereas reliability of the separate scales estimated with this sample were less than 0.84. Our findings suggest that combining multiple scales into one aggression score using latent variable modeling results in comprehensive and reliable aggression scores that offer researchers several advantages over current methods for measuring aggression.
authors.affiliation: Houston Center for Quality of Care and Utilization Studies, Baylor College of Medicine, USA. komalley@bcm.tmc.edu
authors.forename: K J
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: O'Malley
authors.forename: C A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Orengo
authors.forename: M E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Kunik
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Snow
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Molinari
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000374:Aggression / Q000523:psychology*; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D006787:Hospitals, Veterans; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015233:Models, Statistical; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015588:Observer Variation; D010552:Personality Assessment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011567:Psychiatric Department, Hospital; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results