Testing Antonovsky's sense of coherence (SOC) scale among Swedish physically active older people

In Antonovsky's salutogenic theory, the major concept sense of coherence (SOC) is constituted of three core components called comprehensibility, manageability, and meaningfulness. Several scales that are intended to measure SOC are available and used by researchers in health and caring sciences all over the world. When using a scale, evidence of its quality in different study groups is needed in order to get reliable and valid data. The aim of this study was to test reliability and construct validity of the Swedish version of Antonovsky's original 29-item sense of coherence (SOC) scale in a group of physically active older people. The scale was tested with a convenience sample of 140 physically active older individuals, who took part in different fitness-training groups in eastern Sweden. Reliability was assessed as item to total correlations and with the Cronbach's alpha coefficient. Construct validity was assessed with the known groups technique, confirmatory factor analysis, and with logistic regression analysis. The results showed that in the studied group of older individuals, the instrument was a very reliable tool with a Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.92. Construct validity of the scale was supported by the fact that the global concept sense of coherence was found to be hierarchically organized in a model that consisted of the three core components of comprehensibility, manageability, and meaningfulness. Furthermore, perceived health could be explained to some degree by sense of coherence, but even more by comprehensibility, in both cases independently of chronological age. The results clearly corroborated Antonovsky's theory.