Page 118 - IJPS-11-1

International Journal of
Population Studies Developing individual active aging measurement tool

Table 2. Subscale values to calculate the active aging index
Dimension Subdimension Subscale No. of Items Range of Range of
items items subscale
Health Physical Objective health 3 (i) Presence of symptoms in the past two weeks. Recoded 0/1 based 0 – 1 0 – 3
on average.
(ii) Absence/presence of chronic disease.
(iii) Absence/presence of non-chronic disease or psychological
stress in the past 3 months.
Subjective health 4 (i) Perceived limitations in daily activities. 0 – 4 0 – 16
(ii) Perception of daily activity limited by cognitive state.
(iii) Satisfaction with health.
(iv) Perceived on health compared to peers.
Functionality Functionality 2 (i) Independence in Basic Life Activities. 0 – 4 0 – 8
(ii) Independence in Instrumental Life Activities.
Cognitive Cognitive 1 (i) Mini-examen cognoscitivo. Well-cognitive state versus possible 0 – 1 0 – 1
cognitive decline.
Affective Situation in life 4 (i) Feeling things are going well. 0 – 2 0 – 8
(ii) Feeling glad for having people to count on.
(iii) Feeling full of energy.
(iv) Feeling confident about the future.
Emotions 3 (i) Joy. 0 – 2 0 – 6
(ii) Cheer or happiness.
(iii) Euphoric.
Goals 2 (i) Interest. 0 – 2 0 – 4
(ii) Achievement.
Social Friends 3 (i) Frequency of contact with friends and family. 0 – 4 0 – 12
(ii) Satisfaction with relationship with neighbors.
(iii) Satisfaction with relationship with friends.
Family 9 (i) Visits. 0 – 4 0 – 36
(ii) Having people who care about oneself.
(iii) Possibility to talk to someone about problems.
(iv) Receiving invitations to entertain or going out.
(v) Receiving help when being ill.
(vi) Receiving love and affection.
(vii) Satisfaction with help from family.
(viii) Satisfaction with time spent with family.
(ix) Feeling loved by family.

dimension but also the improvement areas to enhance in learning, and use of ICT. Taking into consideration also the
the intervention, according to individual preferences. This ambient and socioeconomic aspects would imply assessing
approach solves one relevant gap in this field, namely, the another construct called quality of life (Fernández-
absence of a personal measurement tool that unifies all Ballesteros, 2009), so they were proposed as external
the components in the same score and quantifies active conditions of life influencing active aging (Boudiny, 2013;
aging as a continuous variable (Bowling, 2008; Fernández- Fernández-Ballesteros, 2009). Here, this concept was
Ballesteros, 2009). addressed in terms of objective and subjective variables
Both concept and measurement tool development were to capture the personal perspective (Stenner et al., 2011).
aimed at the individual after reviewing different approaches Both are necessary given that the subjective variables refer
to active aging to extract the main subdimensions linked to older people’s perceptions of their conditions, whereas the
to not only the theoretical definitions (e.g., WHO, 2002) objective ones impede the consideration of a situation as a
but also according to the debates found in the literature good one when it is not so (objective and subjective health).
(Marsillas et al., 2017). Components included allude to In some cases, self-assessments are better predictors of
personal conditions, such as physical, functional, cognitive, mortality than objective evaluation (Fernández-Ballesteros,
affective, and social dimensions, as well as participation in 2009; Schoenfeld et al., 1994), but by including objective
terms of social participation, employment, leisure, lifelong variables, the “wellbeing paradox” is softer.

Volume 11 Issue 1 (2025) 112 https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.428