OBJECTIVE: To develop a questionnaire that measures levels of empowerment experienced by older adults admitted to a psychiatric ward. DESIGN: Diverse views were sought to inform the questionnaire through a triangulation method; opinions of researchers were collected through a Delphi survey, clinical staff from different disciplines completed questionnaires, and patients participated in two focus group sessions. Once the questionnaire was developed, the authors asked patients to complete it alongside other instruments. SETTINGS: Eight psychiatric wards of seven hospitals in and around London for people aged more than 65 years with a range of organic and functional mental health problems. PARTICIPANTS: Eighty-seven patients with a functional psychiatric diagnosis participated in the psychometric evaluation of the instrument; 28 completed the scale twice for test-retest reliability. MEASURES: Measures of quality of life (World Health Organisation Quality of Life - Abbreviated Version), degree of dependency (Care Dependency Scale), satisfaction with care (Psychiatric Care Satisfaction Questionnaire [PCSQ]), and psychosocial functioning (GAF) were used to evaluate psychometric properties of the empowerment questionnaire for inpatients (EQuIP). RESULTS: The EQuIP is a measure of empowerment, which computes the subjective importance of the different aspects of psychiatric care for the individual patient. It had high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.88) and reasonable concurrent validity (correlation with PCSQ as a measure of satisfaction with care, r(85) = 0.65, p = 0.01). High test-retest variability may signify fluidity of the construct of empowerment. CONCLUSION: The EQuIP may be used to assess empowerment in older psychiatric inpatients.
OBJECTIVE: To develop a questionnaire that measures levels of empowerment experienced by older adults admitted to a psychiatric ward. DESIGN: Diverse views were sought to inform the questionnaire through a triangulation method; opinions of researchers were collected through a Delphi survey, clinical staff from different disciplines completed questionnaires, and patients participated in two focus group sessions. Once the questionnaire was developed, the authors asked patients to complete it alongside other instruments. SETTINGS: Eight psychiatric wards of seven hospitals in and around London for people aged more than 65 years with a range of organic and functional mental health problems. PARTICIPANTS: Eighty-seven patients with a functional psychiatric diagnosis participated in the psychometric evaluation of the instrument; 28 completed the scale twice for test-retest reliability. MEASURES: Measures of quality of life (World Health Organisation Quality of Life - Abbreviated Version), degree of dependency (Care Dependency Scale), satisfaction with care (Psychiatric Care Satisfaction Questionnaire [PCSQ]), and psychosocial functioning (GAF) were used to evaluate psychometric properties of the empowerment questionnaire for inpatients (EQuIP). RESULTS: The EQuIP is a measure of empowerment, which computes the subjective importance of the different aspects of psychiatric care for the individual patient. It had high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.88) and reasonable concurrent validity (correlation with PCSQ as a measure of satisfaction with care, r(85) = 0.65, p = 0.01). High test-retest variability may signify fluidity of the construct of empowerment. CONCLUSION: The EQuIP may be used to assess empowerment in older psychiatric inpatients.