Testing and validating a simplified scale to measure social participation of people with disabilities in Indonesia

Abstract

Purpose: The Participation Scale is an 18-item interview-based scale that measures social participation. In Indonesia, problems were reported with conducting the Participation Scale interview. To address these, a simplified version of the Participation Scale was developed and tested in Jakarta and Makassar, Indonesia. Methods: People with different kinds of disability were interviewed with the original Participation Scale and the simplified version and we also asked their opinion about the scale. Fifty people without disabilities were included to establish the “normal” score for social participation. The following psychometric properties were calculated: internal consistency, criterion validity, floor and ceiling effects and interpretability. Internal consistency was calculated using Cronbach’s alpha (>0.70). Criterion validity was calculated for the continuous participation scores using Spearman’s rank correlation (0.77 [p < 0.0001]). Results: Floor and ceiling effects were not present. The control group was used to interpret the quantitative scores. Sensitivity and specificity were 0.88 and 0.80, respectively. The observations and feedback during interviews showed that there were still difficulties when using the simplified version. Conclusion: The psychometric properties of the simplified instrument are good, but our findings showed that even the simplified version of the Participation Scale still remains difficult to understand for people with a low education level. Further work on the simplification of this instrument is necessary.

Implications for Rehabilitation

• The Participation Scale has been developed to measure social participation of people with disabilities and can be used for monitoring and evaluating socio-economic rehabilitation.

• In Indonesia, the need for a simplified version of the Participation Scale was identified.

• This study tested a simplified version of the scale against the original instrument.

• Although psychometric properties were good, further validation on the simplified version is necessary.

Keywords::

• Disability
• leprosy
• participation
• scale
• validation

Acknowledgments

Special thanks go to Ibu Mimi and the Mimi Institute and to the interpreters Astrid Louisia, Shianty Winchester, Aviana Nastasia and Pephy N. Golo. We are grateful for the technical advice given by Dr. Caroline Terwee on the design of the study and for the practical and logistical help given by the Netherlands Leprosy Relief (NLR) office in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Declaration of interest: This study was financially supported by the NLR office in the Netherlands.

Appendix 1.  Simplified Participation Scale.

Comment:

Name: _________________________________________

Age: ____      Gender: ______

Interviewer: ___________________________________     Date of interview: ___ / ___ / ____

Appendix 2.  Original Participation Scale.

Comment:

Name: _________________________________________

Age: ______     Gender: ________

Interviewer: ___________________________________    Date of interview: ___ / ___ / ____

Grades of participation restriction

Disclaimer: The Participation Scale is the intellectual property of the Participation Scale Development Team. Neither the Team nor its sponsors can be held responsible for any consequences of the use of the Participation Scale.