A pilot validation study of a new measure of activity in psychosis

Wing and Brown [Wing JK and Brown GW (1970) Institutionalism and schizophrenia: a comparative study of three mental health hospitals 1960-1968. Cambridge University Press, London] demonstrated a clear relationship between activity and clinical improvement, using time budget methodology with people with psychosis. However, existing time budget measures are demanding to complete, and simpler, check-box measures of activity rely on subjective frequency judgements and do not include the full range of activities in which an individual might be involved. We report on a pilot validation of a simplified time budget measure of activity levels for routine use as a measure of change with people with psychosis.

Forty-two participants living in the local community with a schizophrenia spectrum diagnosis were grouped according to length of illness and, within the longer duration group, into high/low activity. All completed the time budget. On a second occasion, 15 participants also completed the subscales of the Social Functioning Scale (SFS) (Br J Psychiatry 157:853-859, 1990) to assess construct validity, and 15 completed the time budget to assess test-retest reliability.

The time budget discriminated between duration and activity level groups and showed good inter-rater reliability and test-retest reliability. On the SFS, correlations with subscales measuring withdrawal, activities of daily living and employment were found.

Results indicate that our measure is tapping the activity component of social functioning. A larger scale validation study and investigation of sensitivity to change is underway.