This paper describes the transcultural adaptation to Portuguese of the Selection, Optimization and Compensation questionnaire (SOC), to be applied to aged people. The instrument aims to check the level of adaptation by aged people facing daily challenges, and then explains their successful aging. From the understanding of what makes aged people successful, it will be possible to direct caring and attention to the health of this age group. We will assess the use of four planning strategies for life, which constitute the model of selective optimization plus compensation proposed by Baltes. This model is structured in Aging Psychology´s perspective known as life-span. The process of transcultural adaptation involved the following steps: initial translation; translation´s summary; back-translation into English; review by a committee of experts whose task is to assess semantic, idiomatic, experimental and conceptual equivalence and the pretest for final version, which included 34 aged people. From transcultural adaptation of SOC questionnaire it was possible to propose a preliminary version in Portuguese. However, for acceptance of transcultural equivalence between the original and the translation, it is necessary the later comparison between psychometric properties of Portuguese version and the original, a necessary task which is already been performed and will be presented in forthcoming articles.
Elderly; Human Development; Aging; Validation Studies
