Citation

Bunt S, Steverink N, Andrew MK, Schans CPV, Hobbelen H. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2017; 14(11): e14111387.

Affiliation

Department of General Practice and Elderly Care Medicine, University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, 9700 AD Groningen, The Netherlands. j.s.m.hobbelen@pl.hanze.nl.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, MDPI: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute)

DOI

10.3390/ijerph14111387

PMID

29135914

Abstract

Being able to identify socially frail older adults is essential for designing interventions and policy and for the prediction of health outcomes, both on the level of individual older adults and of the population. The aim of the present study was to adapt the Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) to the Dutch language and culture for those purposes. A systematic cross-cultural adaptation of the initial Social Vulnerability Index was performed following five steps: initial translation, synthesis of translations, back translation, a Delphi procedure, and a test for face validity and feasibility. The main result of this study is a face-valid 32 item Dutch version of the Social Vulnerability Index (SVI-D) that is feasible in health care and social care settings. The SVI-D is a useful index to measure social frailty in Dutch-language countries and offers a broad, holistic quantification of older people's social circumstances related to the risk of adverse health outcomes.

Language: en

Keywords

frailty; index; social frailty; social vulnerability