This project will develop and test the psychometric properties of an instrument-- the Program Environment Scale--to measure the degree to which non-residential community support programs for the severely mentally ill incorporate elements of the Community Support Program (CSP) philosophy and approach, elements of the """"""""Fountain House"""""""" model, and elements of other psychosocial rehabilitation principles in their daily operations, relationships and philosophy. The research plan has four stages: (1) development of domains and items for the Program Environment Scale, including structuring the domains, writing items, and pretesting; (2) field tests, including sample design and recruitment, and data collection; (3) analysis, including determining scale structure, assessing reliability, and assessing validity; and (4) dissemination. Two field tests will be carried out. The first, with 9 programs (3 each from three different program types), approximately 100 staff respondents, and 120 consumer respondents, will provide the data for psychometric work to establish the final scales and subscales of the Program Environment Scale. The second, with 15 programs (5 of each type), about 150 staff respondents, and 200 or more consumer respondents, will provide reliability and validity data for the final Scale, including test- retest reliability. Although not part of the instrument development work proposed here, the ultimate goal for this Program Environment Scale (PES) will be its use in research to evaluate the program environment and atmosphere factors affecting the outcomes of people who use community-based programs for the severely mentally ill. If used in conjunction with outcome measures and instruments measuring amounts and types of service delivery and measures of client characteristics, the PES will reveal potential interactions between program environment, service configurations, and client characteristics that affect client outcomes. A greater ability to match clients to appropriate programs will be the result.
| Burt, M R; Duke, A E; Hargreaves, W A (1998) The Program Environment Scale: assessing client perceptions of community-based programs for the severely mentally ill. Am J Community Psychol 26:853-79 |
