Introducing the Occupational Balance Questionnaire (OBQ)

Abstract

Objective: The concept of occupational balance is frequently used in occupational therapy but the fact that it has been defined and measured differently is a limitation. This article introduces the Occupational Balance Questionnaire (OBQ), which focuses on satisfaction with the amount and variation of occupations. It consists of 13 items measured on six-step ordinal scales. It has shown good content validity in a sample of 21 occupational therapists but other psychometric properties have not been investigated. The aim was to investigate the OBQ regarding internal consistency, test–retest reliability, and floor/ceiling effects. Methods: The OBQ was administered twice to a sample selected through convenience sampling. Internal consistency was investigated by Cronbach's alpha and test–retest reliability analysed with Spearman's Rho correlation for the total score and weighted kappa on each item. Potential floor/ceiling effects were explored by checking for the percentage of participants who scored lowest and highest. Results: The results demonstrated that the OBQ has good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha 0.936) and sufficient test–retest reliability (Spearman's Rho for the total score was 0.926) and, thus, seems stable over time. No floor or ceiling effect was detected. Conclusions: The OBQ therefore showed promising reliability, although further instrument development studies to examine its construct validity are required.

Key words::

• validity
• reliability
• occupational therapy
• instrument development

Acknowledgement

The authors wish to thank Birgitta Gunnarsson for providing some of the data. This study was supported by the Swedish Association of Occupational Therapy.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.