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. 2022 Jun;94(4):496-514.
doi: 10.1177/0091415020957388. Epub 2020 Sep 25.

The Development and Validation of the Threat of Dementia Scale

Richard Cheston  1 , Emily Dodd  1 , Gary Christopher  1 , Paul White  2 , Tim Wildschut  3 , Constantine Sedikides  3
Affiliations

The Development and Validation of the Threat of Dementia Scale

Richard Cheston et al. Int J Aging Hum Dev. 2022 Jun.

Abstract

Dementia represents a substantial threat to the self. However, to date, there is no reliable way to measure how threatened people feel by dementia. This article reports on two online studies. In Study 1, 248 participants rated statements about dementia according to their threat to well-being. In Study 2, 99 participants (all students at the University of the West of England) completed the emerging scale (the Threat of Dementia Scale or ToDS). We validated this by examining its associations with conceptually related measures, including the revised Fraboni Scale of Ageism and the Fear of Alzheimer's Disease Scale. Study 1 yielded 13 statements that were highly intercorrelated and comprised a single factor. In Study 2, the ToDS demonstrated good construct validity and acceptable test-retest reliability. Higher levels of distancing predicted lower scores on the ToDS. The ToDS is a reliable and valid instrument that is the first statistically validated method of examining the extent to which dementia threatens well-being.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; dementia; identity; scales; threat.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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