Psychometric evaluation of the Ward Atmosphere Scale in a Russian psychiatric hospital

The aim of the study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the 10 subscales of the Ward Atmosphere Scale (WAS) in a Russian psychiatric hospital.

A total of 212 patients and 96 staff members at five wards for acute psychiatric patients completed the WAS. We calculated Cronbach's alpha, the Corrected Item Total Subscale Correlation (CITC), and item-revised subscale intercorrelations.

By removing a total of 32 items, the psychometric properties for all subscales except "Autonomy", reached an acceptable level for the patient scores. Although several of the revised subscales were highly intercorrelated, the specificity of the items of the revised scales appeared acceptable.

The revised WAS version appeared applicable within this Russian psychiatric hospital context. Several of the items that were dropped appeared inapplicable because of differences between Russian and Western culture and psychiatry.