Cognitive Interviews for Questionnaire Development in the NSHAP Wave 3 Elder Mistreatment Module
Bernard Dugoni, PhD
NORC at the University of Chicago
Melissa J.K. Howe
NORC at the University of Chicago
Nola du Toit
NORC at the University of Chicago
Kelly Pudelek
NORC at the University of Chicago
The National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP) is a longitudinal study of community-dwelling older adults, carried out by NORC at the University of Chicago and funded by the National Institute on Aging. To date, NSHAP includes three waves of data, collected in person at five year intervals during 2005-06, 2010-11, and 2015-16. NSHAP's general focus is on the well-being and social worlds of older adults in the United States. In addition to collecting detailed data on social relationships, physical environment, and health, NSHAP measures elder mistreatment and neglect among community dwelling older adults in the United States. This methods paper focuses on the evolution of the NSHAP mistreatment and neglect modules, providing a detailed overview of measurement changes between Wave 1 and Wave 3 as well as scientific and practical rationale for replacing the four main Wave 1 elder abuse questions with the enhanced Wave 3 elder abuse and potential neglect modules. Our discussion includes an overview of how (and why) cognitive interviews were employed with a purposeful sample of new respondents to pre-test proposed elder mistreatment and neglect questions for Wave 3.