A SWEDISH VERSION OF THE APPRAISAL OF SELF-CARE AGENCY (ASA) SCALE

The ''Appraisal of Self-care Agency'' scale (the ASA scale) is designe d to measure self-care agency in accordance with Orem's self-care defi cit theory of nursing. The aim of this study was to obtain a reliable Swedish version of the ASA scale by measuring the internal consistency . ASA-A for self-appraisal and ASA-B for appraisal of another were tes ted with a convenience sample of 52 elderly in-patients and 53 caregiv ers in six geriatric care units. Cronbach's alpha reliability coeffici ent was 0.59 for the ASA-A scores, 0.77 for ASA-B scores obtained by c aregivers comprising different professions, and 0.87 for scores obtain ed by registered nurses. Further testing of both validity and reliabil ity is needed if this version of the scale is to be used in nursing re search and practice.