The validity of the Japanese version of the Friendship scale in nonagenarians in Japan

Research Objectives: To investigate the validity of the Japanese version of the Friendship scale in nonagenarians in Japan.

Design: Cross-sectional study. Spearman correlations were used to analyze data.

Setting: Community.

Participants: Volunteer samples. People aged 90 years and over who will donate their bodies to Sapporo Medical University for medical education and research after death (N=39). The protocols were approved by the Sapporo Medical University Ethics Committee (code: 1-2-30).

Interventions: Not applicable.

Main Outcome Measures: The Friendship Scale is a short and user-friendly scale to measure perceived social isolation, but the Japanese version of the scale has not been validated. To this end, the original English version of the Friendship Scale was translated into Japanese, and the Japanese version were reviewed by a back translation procedure. The translated scale, in Japanese, was then administered to the participants. We also evaluated the UCLA 3 Item Loneliness Scale (UCLA), the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS), and the Philadelphia Geriatric Center (PGC) Morale Scale, to evaluate loneliness, geriatric depression, and subjective well-being, respectively.

Results: The score of the Friendship Scale was correlated negatively with the scores of the UCLA (r=-0.4484, p= 0.0048) and the GDS (r=-0.5328, p= 0.0006), and positively with the scores of the PGC Morale Scale (r= 0.3444, p= 0.0397). The score of the UCLA was also related positively with the scores of the GDS (r= 0.6067, p= < 0.0001), and negatively with the scores of the PGC Morale Scale (r= -0.4277, p= 0.0083). Moreover, the score of GDS was negatively with the scores of the PGC Morale Scale (r= -0.7191, p= < 0.0001).

Conclusions: These preliminary results indicate that the Japanese version of the Friendship Scale is appropriate to evaluate perceived social isolation. In addition, the feeling of loneliness, depression, and subjective well-being were closely related with each other in Japanese people aged 90 years and over.

Author(s) Disclosures: The authors have no COI to disclose.