Background:One of the main health-related worries for older adults is becoming dependent. Even healthy older adults may worry about becoming dependent, generating guilt feelings due to the anticipation of future needs that others must solve. The guilt associated with self-perception as a burden has not been studied in older adults, and there is no instrument available to measure these feelings.Aims:To adapt the Self-Perceived Burden Scale (SPBS; Cousineau et al., 2003) for the assessment of feelings of guilt for perceiving oneself as a burden for the family in older adults without explicit functional or cognitive impairment.Method:Participants were 298 older adults living independently in the community. Participants completed the assessment protocol, which included measures of guilt associated with self-perception as a burden, depressive and anxious symptomatology, self-perceived burden, and sociodemographic information.Results:Results from exploratory, parallel and confirmatory factor analyses suggest that the scale, named Guilt associated with Self-Perception as a Burden Scale (G-SPBS), has a unidimensional structure, explaining 57.04% of the variance of guilt. Good reliability was found (Cronbach’s alpha = .94). The results revealed significant (p < .01) positive associations with depressive and anxious symptomatology.Discussion:These findings suggest that the G-SPBS shows good psychometric properties which endorse its use with healthy community older adults. Also, guilt associated with perceiving oneself as a burden seems to be a relevant variable that can contribute to improving our understanding of psychological distress in older adults.

中文翻译：

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与作为负担量表的自我感知相关的内疚的验证 (G-SPBS)

背景：老年人与健康相关的主要担忧之一是变得依赖。即使是健康的老年人也可能担心变得依赖，由于预期其他人必须解决的未来需求而产生内疚感。尚未在老年人中研究与作为负担的自我感知相关的内疚感，也没有可用的工具来衡量这些感觉。目的：调整自我感知负担量表（SPBS；Cousineau）等人., 2003) 用于评估没有明确功能或认知障碍的老年人将自己视为家庭负担的内疚感。方法：参与者是社区中独立生活的 298 名老年人。参与者完成了评估方案，其中包括与自我感知为负担、抑郁和焦虑症状、自我感知负担和社会人口学信息相关的内疚测量。结果：探索性、平行和验证性因素分析的结果表明，量表、被命名为与自我感知相关的负罪感量表 (G-SPBS)，具有一维结构，解释了 57.04% 的内疚方差。发现了良好的可靠性（Cronbach's alpha = .94）。结果显示显着（p< .01) 与抑郁和焦虑症状的正相关。讨论：这些研究结果表明，G-SPBS 显示出良好的心理测量特性，支持其在健康社区老年人中的使用。此外，与将自己视为负担相关的内疚似乎是一个相关变量，有助于提高我们对老年人心理困扰的理解。