Validity of a brief measure of post-hospital adjustment for psychiatric patients

This study examined the psychometric properties of a 14-item self-administered outcome measure of post-hospital adjustment for former psychiatric inpatients. Such scales are frequently used in follow-up assessment, often without knowledge of scale reliability or validity. Responses to the scale items were factor analyzed for two samples, former patients and their therapists, each group rating the patient's post-hospital adjustment. Two strong factors emerged and were consistent across both samples: an anxiety-depression (intrapsychic) dimension and a functioning/productivity (external adjustment) dimension. Both scales showed good convergent validity with longer, standardized measures. Agreement between patients and therapists was adequate for anxiety-depression, indicating good consensual validity, but poor for functional adjustment. For the expatients, discriminant validity was not evident.