Validity, reliability, acceptability, and utility of the Social Inclusion Questionnaire User Experience (SInQUE): a clinical tool to facilitate social inclusion amongst people with severe mental health problems

Abstract

Background Individuals with severe mental health problems are at risk of social exclusion, which may complicate their recovery. Mental health and social care staff have, until now, had no valid or reliable way of assessing their clients' social inclusion. The Social Inclusion Questionnaire User Experience (SInQUE) was developed to address this. It assesses five domains: social integration; productivity; consumption; access to services; and political engagement, in the year prior to first psychiatric admission (T1) and the year prior to interview (T2) from which a total score at each time point can be calculated. Aims To establish the validity, reliability, and acceptability of the SInQUE in individuals with a broad range of psychiatric diagnoses receiving care from community mental health services and its utility for mental health staff. Method Participants were 192 mental health service users with psychosis, personality disorder, or common mental disorder (e.g., depression, anxiety) who completed the SInQUE alongside other validated outcome measures. Test-retest reliability was assessed in a sub-sample of 30 participants and inter-rater reliability was assessed in 11 participants. SInQUE ratings of 28 participants were compared with those of a sibling with no experience of mental illness to account for shared sociocultural factors. Acceptability and utility of the tool were assessed using completion rates and focus groups with staff. Results The SInQUE demonstrated acceptable convergent validity. The total score and the Social Integration domain score were strongly correlated with quality of life, both in the full sample and in the three diagnostic groups. Discriminant validity and test-retest reliability were established across all domains, although the test-retest reliability on scores for the Service Access and Political Engagement domains prior to first admission to hospital (T1) was lower than other domains. Inter-rater reliability was excellent for all domains at T1 and T2. Conclusions The component of the SInQUE that assesses current social inclusion has good psychometric properties and can be recommended for use by mental health staff.

To what extent does severity of loneliness vary among different mental health diagnostic groups: A cross‐sectional study

“…This study is a secondary analysis based on data collected from The Social Inclusion Questionnaire User Experience (SInQUE) project, a nationally funded research study (Mezey et al, 2020). The SInQUE measure (Mezey et al, 2013) assesses social inclusion across five domains: social integration; productivity; consumption; access to services; and political engagement.…”

Psychometric properties of a brief, self-report measure of social inclusion: the F-SIM16

“…As the F-SIM16 was developed in response to an identified need for appropriate measures of social inclusion, so too were other measures, including the SIS (Stickley and Shaw, 2006;Lloyd et al, 2008;Dorer et al, 2009;Secker et al, 2009;Marino-Francis and Worrall-Davies, 2010;Huxley et al, 2012;Mezey et al, 2013). As per the F-SIM16, the development and evaluation of some of these measures have progressed (Huxley et al, 2015;Wilson and Secker, 2015;Mezey et al, 2020), yet none have reported a complete psychometric evaluation to date. Additional limitations include poor generalisability as a result of having been developed for use in specific settings (Stickley and Shaw, 2006;Dorer et al, 2009;Secker et al, 2009;Marino-Francis and Worrall-Davies, 2010) and imbalances in the inclusion of objective/subjective elements (either a greater focus on subjective measures [Stickley and Shaw, 2006;Lloyd et al, 2008;Secker et al, 2009;Marino-Francis and Worrall-Davies, 2010), or an entire focus on objective measures (Dorer et al, 2009)].…”

‘Modelling social exclusion in a diagnostically-mixed sample of people with severe mental illness’

“…The sample size for this study was dictated by the requirements of the psychometric testing reported by Mezey et al (2020). However, power analysis using Dunlap et al (2004) guided our selection of independent variables for the regression modelling.…”

“…The Social Inclusion Questionnaire User Experience (SInQUE) was developed by the authors to assess social inclusion across five domains; consumption, production, access to services, social integration and civil engagement (Mezey et al, 2020(Mezey et al, , 2013. The higher the score, the greater the level of social inclusion.…”

“…The tool is completed by a member of staff through discussion with the service user. It has been shown to have good psychometric properties and to be acceptable to both service users and mental health professionals (Mezey et al, 2020(Mezey et al, , 2013. Whilst previous studies have assessed the social inclusion of people with severe mental illness, none have assessed people with other types of mental health problem using a standardised measure.…”