A retesting and modification of the Philadelphia Geriatric Center Morale Scale

The inter-item structuring of the questions in the Philadelphia Geriatric Center Morale Scale was analyzed for sample members of two studies being conducted by the Dept. of Social Gerontological Research of The Hebrew Rehabilitation Center for Aged (Boston) in an attempt to understand better the several components of the PGC battery first reported by Lawton. PGC items were subjected to principal component and Varimax factor analyses for both the original 22 items and also a reduced 17-item battery. In addition, using more recent findings of Lawton, further structural tests were performed in order to obtain the best possible configuration of items for the several reliable scale components found. The results of these cross SAMPLE ANALYSES INDICATE AN OVER-ALL LEVEL OF RELIABILITY FOR THREE OF THE ORIGINAL PGC components; and at the same time, indices of greater length and reliability resulted when these three PGC components were slightly restructured.