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Quantifying environmental factors: A measure of physical, attitudinal, service, productivity, and policy barriers11No commercial party having a direct financial interest in the results of the research supporting this article has or will confer a benefit upon the authors(s) or upon any organization with which the author(s) is/are associated.

2004; Elsevier BV; Volume: 85; Issue: 8 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.apmr.2003.09.027

1532-821X

Gale G. Whiteneck, Cynthia Harrison‐Felix, David C. Mellick, C. A. Brooks, Susan Charlifue, Ken A Gerhart,

Injury Epidemiology and Prevention

Objective To develop and test a new instrument to assess environmental barriers encountered by people with and without disabilities by using a questionnaire format. Design New instrument development. Setting A rehabilitation hospital and community. Participants Two convenience samples: (1) 97 subjects, 50 with disabilities and 47 without disability, and (2) 409 subjects with disabilities from spinal cord injury, traumatic brain injury, multiple sclerosis, amputation, or auditory or visual impairments. In addition, a population-based sample in Colorado of 2269 people (mean age, 44y; 57% men) with and without disabilities. Interventions Not applicable. Main outcome measures Item development; factor structure; test-retest, subject-proxy and internal consistency reliability; content, construct, and discriminant validity; and subscale and abbreviated version development. Results Panels of experts on disability developed items for the Craig Hospital Inventory of Environmental Factors (CHIEF). The instrument measured the frequency and magnitude of environmental barriers reported by individuals. Five subscales were derived from factor analysis measuring (1) attitudes and support, (2) services and assistance, (3) physical and structural, (4) policy, and (5) work and school environmental barriers. The CHIEF total score had high test-retest reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient [ICC]=.93) and high internal consistency (Cronbach α=.93), but lower participant-proxy agreement (ICC=.62). Significant differences were found in CHIEF scores among groups of people with known differences in disability levels and disability categories. Conclusions The CHIEF has good test-retest and internal consistency reliability with evidence of content, construct, and discriminant validity resulting from its development strategy and psychometric assessments in samples of the general population and among people with a variety of disabilities.