The successful aging construct is used often in recent gerontological literature, although no consensus has been reached regarding its definition and included components. Consequently, various ways of its operationalization could be found in the literature. This paper presents the construction and validation procedure of the Self-Assessed Successful Aging Scale, the first measure that attempted to directly capture this construct on a Croatian sample of older adults. The psychometric properties of the scale were tested on a sample of 479 elderly people aged 60 to 95 (M = 69.37; SD = 7.03) from different Croatian regions. The hypothesized one-factor structure of the scale (with the introduction of additional parameters in the onefactor model) was partly confirmed by the confirmatory factor analysis. The scale showed satisfactory sensitivity and reliability. In support of the validity of the scale, significant correlations between the results on the scale and some constructs that were expected to be associated with successful aging, such as physical and mental health, life satisfaction, sense of meaning in life, optimism, generativity, etc., were found. In conclusion, the Self-Assessed Successful Aging Scale showed good psychometric properties in the examined sample of the elderly, so it can be used in studies on successful aging. However, further examinations of its factor structure are recommended. Besides, opportunities for further revisions of its content are open, in order to improve validity and cultural sensitivity of the scale, to capture better the construct of successful aging in the Croatian cultural environment.

Self-Assessed Successful Aging Scale, measures of successful aging, successful aging, older people