Scales for participant Alliance with Recovery Coach (SPARC): initial development and pilot test

Abstract

Recovery coaches are individuals with lived experience with recovery from substance use disorder who typically engender a greater sense of trust than found with other types of healthcare providers. However, there currently are no validated tools that measure the connection between recovery coaches and their participants. The purpose of this study was to describe the initial development of the Scales for Participant Alliance with Recovery Coach (SPARC) to measure recovery coach connection or alliance, including initial psychometric analyses. Measurement development began with five scales of the Client Evaluation of Self Treatment (treatment participation, treatment satisfaction, rapport, peer support, and social support). Adapted items were pre-tested with focus groups (n = 8) to ensure they were meaningful and accurately reflected the domains (Study 1). After modifications, the SPARC has six scales (engagement, satisfaction, rapport, motivation and encouragement, role model and community linkage). The survey was piloted with 100 individuals (Study 2) age 18 or over who had met with a recovery coach within the last six months. Most study participants were male (60%) and white (87%) with less than two years in recovery. After removing two low performing items, the items for five of the domains had acceptable internal consistency. The items for the engagement domain had a slightly lower reliability. Findings suggest that items cover relevant recovery coach roles, are internally consistent within domains, and can be easily administered to individuals engaging in recovery coaching services. Additional research is needed with a larger, more heterogenous sample to further refine items.

Keywords:

• Recovery coaching
• peer support
• alliance
• recovery support
• scale development

Ethical statement

This research was approved by the University of Kentucky IRB prior to data collection.

Disclosure statement

Amanda Fallin-Bennett is a Co-founder and Program Director of Voices of Hope.

Additional information

Funding

Research reported in this manuscript was supported by the JCOIN cooperative, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health, through the NIH HEAL Initiative. The authors gratefully acknowledge the collaborative contributions of NIDA and support from grant award UG1DA050069. The contents of this publication are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of NIDA, the NIH HEAL Initiative, or the University of Kentucky.