Measurement of dehabilitation in patients of leprosy--a scale

Leprosy interferes with the psychological and social life of the patients leading to their 'dehabilitation'. Therefore, it is necessary to assess the extent and direction of dehabilitation in order to make the treatment plan comprehensive and effective. The objective of this work was to: (a) construct a scale for measuring dehabilitation and, (b) to standardize it. The methodology included preparation of 52 statements (in English) spread over four subareas of life, namely family relations, vocational condition, social interaction and self-esteem. It was administered to 122 randomly selected respondents. Scores were awarded by summing up the weights of each statement, a high score indicating low dehabilitation. Statistical tests were applied for standardizing the scale. To establish reliability, split-half reliability test and item discriminant analysis were used. Factor analysis was used to test the validity. The results show, that the split-half reliability coefficient ranged high (from 0.64 to 0.83) in all four subareas. The item discriminant analysis had a level of significance of 0.001 for 42 statements while the factor analysis explained variance covered over 70 percent. Hence the scale can be an useful intervention strategy for counselling, case work or rehabilitation.