Testing Construct Validity of the 13-Item Sense of Coherence Scale in a Sample of Older People

The aim was to study the construct validity for the 13-item Sense of Coherence (SOC) scale among people aged 75+. This study comprised 1753 people aged 76–102 years. Construct validity was measured in terms of the instrument’s factor structure as well as discriminant and convergent validity. The result revealed that the instrument failed to show acceptable construct validity in any of the tests or in any age group. The correlation analyses exhibited no clear pattern that could be interpreted as evidence of acceptable construct validity, and the result of the factor analyses did not support the factor structure proposed by Antonovsky. However, this does not necessarily mean that the theoretical concept is invalid, but that this version of the instrument may not be representative of the Sense of Coherence theory.