Development of a scale to measure barriers to health promotion activities among persons with disabilities.

Subjectively-defined barriers to engaging in health promoting activities are one of the most important, yet least well operationalized, components in our models of health promotion. This article describes the development of a tool to measure barriers to health promotion among persons with disabilities. The Barriers to Health Activities among Disabled Persons scale (BHADP) is comprised of 16 items reflecting barriers to taking care of one's health identified from previous barriers literature and interviews with disabled persons. In a study of 135 disabled adults living in two southwestern cities, the BHADP yielded a Cronbach Alpha of .82 as a measure of internal consistency reliability. In addition, t-test analyses demonstrated a significant difference in scores between the disabled sample and a comparison group of 144 nondisabled adults, suggesting the BHADP discriminate between these groups. The BHADP may be useful in sensitizing health care providers to the wide range of barriers experienced by persons with disabilities, thereby enabling them to work more effectively with this special population.