Psychometric properties of the Persian version of the Older People's Quality of Life Questionnaire (OPQOL-35)

Assessing quality of life in elderly needed specific instrument. The Older People’s Quality of Life Questionnaire (OPQOL-35) is one of the common measure used for assessing quality of life of the elderly. This study aimed to translate and validate the Persian version of OPQOL-35, in Iran. This questionnaire consists of 35 items measuring life overall, health, social relationships and participation, independence, control over life and freedom, home and neighborhood, psychological and emotional well-being, financial circumstances, leisure, activities and religion.
Forward-backward procedure was used to translate the questionnaire into Persian. Then, face validity and content validity was performed. Data were collected from 200 older people. In order to evaluate the construct validity, known-groups comparison (elders living alone vs. elder living with family or someone) was performed. The correlation between the OPQOL35 and SF-36 was tested to establish criterion validity. Reliability was evaluated using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) using test- retest analysis.
The result of known- groups comparisons showed that quality of life in elders living alone was significantly lower than other elders (P The findings suggest that the Iranian version of OPQOL-35 is a valid measure for assessing quality of life in elderly populations in different settings.