Reliability and validity of the Turkish version of the trust in physician scale in community-dwelling older adults


BAŞGÖZ B. B., ÇETİN M., KÖKER G., SOLMAZ İ., Yıldırım M. S., NAHARCI M. İ.

BMC Geriatrics, cilt.25, sa.1, 2025 (SCI-Expanded, SSCI, Scopus)

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 25 Sayı: 1
  • Basım Tarihi: 2025
  • Doi Numarası: 10.1186/s12877-025-06070-w
  • Dergi Adı: BMC Geriatrics
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, CINAHL, MEDLINE, Directory of Open Access Journals
  • Anahtar Kelimeler: Trust, Older adults, Reliability and validity, Vulnerable populations, Scales
  • Sağlık Bilimleri Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

Background: Trust is at the core of the patient-physician relationship. The Trust in Physician Scale (TPS) was specifically developed to measure such interpersonal trust and has high validity and reliability. In this study, we aimed to assess the reliability and validity of the Turkish TPS (TPS-TR) among community-dwelling older adults. Methods: This prospective study enrolled community-dwelling older adults aged 65 years and older. The TPS-TR and other scales of generalized anxiety disorder-7 scale (GAD-7), and multidimensional trust in health care systems scale (MTHCSS) subscale-1 “trust in health care providers” were administered to all participants. We assessed the internal consistency, item-total correlations, temporal stability, factor analysis, convergent and discriminant validity of TPS-TR. Results: The study included 230 individuals. TPS-TR demonstrated high internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = 0.866) and remarkable test-retest reliability (ICC = 0.903). The lowest item-to-total correlation was observed for item 5, with a value of 0.375, which was also considered acceptable (> 0.20). TPS-TR was strongly correlated with the MTHCSS subscale-1 (p < 0.001), suggesting high convergent validity, and showed no correlation with GAD-7 (p = 0.087) indicating adequate discriminative validity. Conclusion: The results of our study showed that the TPS-TR has high reliability and validity in measuring the interpersonal trust of community-dwelling older adults in their physicians. Clinical trial number: Not applicable.