Biggins, Anna Marie2022-04-122022-04-122022-05-01https://hdl.handle.net/2097/42092Background: Community-dwelling older adults face unique challenges related to nutrition and health, but little is known about their unique barriers and facilitators for healthy eating behaviors. This study sought to develop a new instrument to measure the capability, opportunity, and motivation for healthy eating behaviors (COM-HE) among community-dwelling older adults. It also aimed to assess the validity, reliability, and acceptability of the new instrument and to examine associations between the COM-HE instrument and self-reported dietary quality. Methods: A mixed methods approach was used to obtain qualitative and quantitative data. Participants were aged 65 years or older, community-dwelling, and English-speaking. Participants engaged in focus groups (n = 12) and pilot testing (n = 81) to evaluate the COM-HE instrument. The REAP-S questionnaire was utilized to examine correlations between the COM-HE instrument and self-reported dietary quality. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to highlight potential relationships between study variables. Results: The COM-HE instrument achieved acceptable internal validity (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.847–0.986), displayed varying levels of unidimensionality based on multiple principal component analyses (total variance explained by three components = 86.72%), and was correlated with self-reported dietary quality scores (r = .409, adjusted R² = .099, p < .05). Preliminary data suggest that the scale was acceptable in terms of readability and understanding among a convenience sample of well-educated older adults. Conclusion: The new COM-HE instrument was acceptable, reliable, and valid among a homogenous sample of adults over 65 years of age. These results suggest a need for additional development, evaluation, and refinement of the instrument in more diverse groups of older adults.en-USThis Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).Healthy eatingOlder adultsCOM-B modelMixed methodsSurvey developmentDietary qualityThesis