Korea is rapidly becoming an aged society and there is growing interest in successful aging. However, most studies about older adults focused on physical problems and dementia. The purpose of this study was to develop Korean version of the Older Adult Self-Report (OASR; Achenbach, Newhouse, & Rescorla, 2004), which assesses behavioral, emotional, and social problems, and to test reliability and validity of Korean OASR by comparing with U.S. samples.
A confirmatory factor analysis supported that the factor structure of the original OASR can be plausibly applied to the Korean OASR. Both Korean and U.S. OASR showed good internal consistency for every syndrome scales. In both samples, moderate correlations were found between OASR and OABCL (Older Adult Behavior CheckList) which is a parallel form of OASR for obtaining reports from people who know the older adult well.
Generally, U.S. 60-75-year-old group reported higher score than Korean samples whereas Korean 76-or-above year old group tended to report higher score than U.S. samples. Notably, Korean females whose ages were 76-or-above showed the highest scores in most scales. In specific, Korean older adults seemed to have more difficulties in Anxious/Depressed and Somatic Complaints while U.S. older adults have more difficulties in Worries and Memory/Cognition. Further research will be needed to identify factors contributing to these differences.