256925 Psychometric Properties of the Practical Skills Test: A Preliminary Study in a Homeless Population with Mental Health Issues

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Feng-Hang Chang, MPH , Sargent College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences, Rehabilitation Science, Boston University, Boston, MA
Christine Helfrich, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA , Department of Occupational Therapy, Boston University, Boston, MA
Objective The Practical Skills Test (PST) is a new measurement tool, designed to assess individuals' knowledge of life skills in food management, money management, home and self-care, and safe community participation. This study aimed to evaluate the reliability, validity, and sensitivity to change of the PST among homeless individuals with mental health issues.

Method This study included 121 homeless individuals (mean age: 47.3 years old; 43.8% female and 56.2% male) in a longitudinal RCT study (100 Experimental, 21 Control). Participants completed baseline assessments (T1), post- intervention assessments (T2) and three-six month follow up assessments (T3) including demographic forms, PST, the Allen Cognitive Level Screen-2000 (ACLS), and the Impact of Event Scale Revised (IES-R).

Results No floor effect was noted; ceiling effects were observed on all PSTs except Food Management. Three PSTs demonstrated good internal consistency (α> 0.7), while food management showed acceptable internal consistency (α= 0.63). Supportive evidence for convergent validity of the PST was found in moderate correlation with the ACLS (r=0.28-0.44, p<0.01); no correlation was found with IES-R. Paired t-test and effect size results indicated PST is sensitive to measuring change in life skills intervention outcomes. The regression analysis indicated self-care scores at T2 predict housing status at T3.

Conclusions The results suggested the PST has generally good reliability and validity, and validated the use of the PST in assessing life skills intervention outcomes. However, the noted ceiling effect indicated a critical limitation of PST. Future studies will be needed to adjust the difficulty level of this measure.

Learning Areas:
Assessment of individual and community needs for health education
Chronic disease management and prevention
Conduct evaluation related to programs, research, and other areas of practice
Social and behavioral sciences

Learning Objectives:
1. Describe the the measurement properties of the Practical Skills Tests. 2. Discuss the utility of the PST in different settings and among different populations.

Keywords: Homeless, Assessments

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I'm the principal investigator of a funded grant on this submitted study. I have presented my research work in many U.S. and international mental health, public health, and occupational therapy, conferences. I also has been well-trained for teaching and has plentiful experience of teaching clinical professionals, graduate and undergraduate students.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 5002.0: Caucus on Homelessness Poster Session