Construct validity of the enfranchisement scale of the community participation indicators.

Objective: This study examined the construct validity of the Enfranchisement scale of the Community Participation Indicators.

Design: We conducted a secondary analysis of data collected in a cross-sectional study of rehabilitation outcomes.

Subjects: The parent study included 604 community-dwelling adults with chronic traumatic brain injury, stroke, or spinal cord injury. The sample had a mean age of 64.1 years, was two-thirds male, and included a high proportion of racial minorities ( = 250, 41.4%).

Main Measures: The Enfranchisement scale contains two subscales: the Control subscale and the Importance subscale. We examined correlations between each Enfranchisement subscale and measures of participation, environment, and impairments. The current analyses included cases with at least 80% of items completed on each subscale (Control subscale: = 391; Importance subscale: = 219). Missing values were imputed using multiple imputation.

Results: The sample demonstrated high scores, indicating poor enfranchisement (Control subscale: = 51.7; Importance subscale: = 43.0). Both subscales were most strongly associated with measures of participation (Control subscale: = 0.56; Importance subscale: = 0.52), and least strongly associated with measures of cognition (Control subscale: = 0.03; Importance subscale: = 0.03). The Importance subscale was closely associated with depression ( = 0.54), and systems, services, and policies ( = 0.50). Both subscales were associated with social attitudes (Control subscale: = 0.44; Importance subscale: = 0.44) and social support (Control subscale: = 0.49; Importance subscale: = 0.41).

Conclusions: We found evidence of convergent validity between the Enfranchisement scale and measures of participation, and discriminant validity between the Enfranchisement scale and measures of disability-related impairments. The analyses also revealed the importance of the environment to enfranchisement outcomes.