SODA: a new questionnaire for the assessment of life satisfaction in late life span

Background: Established measures of well-being rarely examine active lifestyle or religious behaviors. Though these could be assessed using individual measures, in older populations, the availability of a brief composite instrument with adequate psychometric properties would be desirable. Aims: Two studies were conducted to assess the psychometric properties (i.e., item adequacy, factorial structure, reliability and validity) of a new tool that was developed to self-rate personal satisfaction among Italian elders, the SODdisfazione dell’Anziano (SODA) Questionnaire. Methods: 135 young adults (mean age = 29.5 years, SD = 7.4) took part in Study 1, whereas Study 2 was carried out with 474 cognitively healthy 60–98-year-old people, that were asked to complete a battery of well-known well-being measures including the SODA one. Results: Study 1 showed that the SODA questionnaire is a reliable and valid self-report tool defined by three factors, assessing satisfaction about physical and cognitive health, religious well-being, and satisfaction about time spent for leisure activities, respectively. Study 2 replicated the outcomes of Study 1, highlighting the factor structure of the SODA inventory. Moreover, a series of stepwise linear regression analyses pointed out what factors (i.e., education, physical health, social desirability, participation to outdoor leisure activities, gender, and age) predicted the variance relative to the SODA indexes. Discussion: Current findings show the solid psychometric properties of SODA. Conclusions: SODA represents a brief, but reliable and valid, instrument for the assessment of satisfaction (focused on the state level) in late adult span.