Development of Self-Report Measures of Social Attitudes That Act As Environmental Barriers and Facilitators for People With Disabilities

Abstract

Objective To describe the development of new self-report measures of social attitudes that act as environmental facilitators or barriers to the participation of people with disabilities in society. Design A mixed methods approach included a literature review; item classification, selection and writing; cognitive interviews and field testing with participants with spinal cord injury (SCI), traumatic brain injury (TBI) or stroke; and rating scale analysis to evaluate initial psychometric properties. Setting General community. Participants Nine individuals with SCI, TBI or stroke participated in cognitive interviews; 305 community residents with those same conditions participated in field testing. Interventions None. Main Outcome Measure(s) Self-report item pool of social attitudes that act as facilitators or barriers to people with disabilities participating in society. Results An interdisciplinary team of experts classified 710 existing social environment items into content areas and wrote 32 new items. Additional qualitative item review included item refinement and winnowing of the pool prior to cognitive interviews and field testing 82 items. Field test data indicated that the pool satisfies a one-parameter item response theory measurement model and would be appropriate for development into a calibrated item bank. Conclusions Our qualitative item review process supported a social environment conceptual framework that includes both social support and social attitudes. We developed a new social attitudes self-report item pool. Calibration testing of that pool is underway with a larger sample in order to develop a social attitudes item bank for persons with disabilities.

Environmental Factors Item Development for Persons With Stroke, Traumatic Brain Injury, and Spinal Cord Injury

“…The fourth article of this special issue describes the psychometric properties of this item pool in greater detail. 26 …”

Dance and rehabilitation in cerebral palsy: a systematic search and review

“…Attitudinal factors concerning disability are culturally complex and deeply engrained. Understanding attitudes is an important part of the biosocial framework of the ICF and has the potential to catalyse change in public policy . The literature reports greater participation when disability stigma decreases and attitudes toward disability improve, with dance supporting social integration for children with intellectual disability…”

“…Understanding attitudes is an important part of the biosocial framework of the ICF and has the potential to catalyse change in public policy. 28 The literature reports greater participation when disability stigma decreases and attitudes toward disability improve, with dance supporting social integration for children with intellectual disability. 7 The role of dance, music, and arts more generally, in supporting emotional expression and facilitating well-being has been demonstrated across a number of public health projects.…”

Measuring Environmental Factors: Unique and Overlapping International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health Coverage of 5 Instruments

“…Services, and Policies (SSP) 21 perceived access to and adequacy of system and service related environ-89 mental supports; and (4) Social Environment, 22 positive and negative disability-related attitudes and 90 behaviors such as acceptance, stigma, and marginalization from society in general, and members of re-91 spondents' communities and social networks. We wrote Social Environment items to complement 92 PROMIS' Quality of Social Support item banks.…”

“…Information and Technology, (2) the Built and Natural Environment, (3) Systems, Services, and Policies, 96 and (4) the Social Environment 22. Item response theory methods yield equal-interval measures.…”