title: Brief Report: development and initial testing of a questionnaire version of the Environmental Rating Scale (ERS) for assessment of residential programs for individuals with autism.
abstract: There is a lack of validated autism-specific outcome measures for large-scale evaluation of the effectiveness of psycho-educational programmes. To fill this gap the Environment Rating Scale (ERS) was adapted from an interview version to a staff-completed questionnaire version (ERS-Q). The ERS-Q was tested regarding data quality, validity, reliability and ease of understanding amongst 18 residential staff members. The ERS-Q and ERS showed comparable reliability (alpha = 0.89 and 0.93, respectively) and their correlation was 0.73. These observations support that the ERS interview can be adapted into a questionnaire without substantial loss of conceptual meaning. However, further evaluations in larger samples are needed to more firmly evaluate the measurement properties.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Lund University, P.O. Box 157, 221 00 Lund, Sweden. marie.hubel@med.lu.se
authors.forename: Marie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hubel
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Hagell
authors.forename: Bengt
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Sivberg
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D005260:Female; D016352:Group Homes; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D012114:Residential Treatment; D012931:Social Environment; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires