Feasibility, factor structure and construct validity of the easy-read Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit (ASCOT-ER)^*

* This article is based on independent research commissioned and funded by the NIHR Policy Research Programme (Quality and Outcomes of person-centred care policy Research Unit). The views expressed in the publication are those of the authors, and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR, the Department of Health or its arm’s length bodies, or other government departments.

ABSTRACT

Background: The ASCOT-ER is an adapted easy-read version of the ASCOT-SCT4, a self-report measure of social care-related quality of life (SCRQoL) for social care evaluation. In this study, we investigated the instrument’s feasibility, construct validity and factor structure.

Method: Data were collected from 264 service users in England. Feasibility was evaluated by missing data and help to complete the questionnaire. Scale dimensionality was assessed using exploratory factor analysis. Construct validity was evaluated by hypothesis testing.

Results: Convergent validity was supported by moderate to strong correlations between ASCOT-ER and personal wellbeing and overall quality of life, as well as with individual characteristics. Exploratory factor analysis indicated that the ASCOT-ER is a unidimensional scale. Low missingness indicates that the instrument is feasible; however, most respondents needed some level of support to complete the questionnaire.

Conclusion: The study provides preliminary evidence of the ASCOT-ER’s feasibility, unidimensionality and construct validity.

KEYWORDS:

• Intellectual disability
• quality of life
• social care
• outcomes
• ASCOT
• easy-read

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge and thank Jane Dennett and Amanda Burns for their support with the data collection. All authors have seen, contributed to, and approved of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Stacey Rand http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9071-2842

Ann-Marie Towers http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3597-1061

Agnes Turnpenny http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4889-5993

Nick Smith http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9793-6988

Notes

* This article is based on independent research commissioned and funded by the NIHR Policy Research Programme (Quality and Outcomes of person-centred care policy Research Unit). The views expressed in the publication are those of the authors, and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR, the Department of Health or its arm’s length bodies, or other government departments.

1 Preference-based measures like the ASCOT-SCT4 may be used in economic analysis of interventions or policy to establish their cost-effectiveness. With these instruments, each possible response (“outcome state”) is linked to an estimate of its value – its preference weight. The preference weights may be estimated using different methods to estimate the value of each outcome state (for example, the time trade-off method).

2 The ASCS 2015/16 included an easy-read adaptation of the ASCOT developed specifically for the ASCS, rather than the ASCOT-ER developed by Turnpenny et al., 2018.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Department of Health and Social Care: [grant number 25812].