title: Psychometric properties of the communication Confidence Rating Scale for Aphasia (CCRSA): phase 1.
abstract: Confidence is a construct that has not been explored previously in aphasia research. We developed the Communication Confidence Rating Scale for Aphasia (CCRSA) to assess confidence in communicating in a variety of activities and evaluated its psychometric properties using rating scale (Rasch) analysis. The CCRSA was administered to 21 individuals with aphasia before and after participation in a computer-based language therapy study. Person reliability of the 8-item CCRSA was .77. The 5-category rating scale demonstrated monotonic increases in average measures from low to high ratings. However, one item ("I follow news, sports, stories on TV/movies") misfit the construct defined by the other items (mean square infit = 1.69, item-measure correlation = .41). Deleting this item improved reliability to .79; the 7 remaining items demonstrated excellent fit to the underlying construct, although there was a modest ceiling effect in this sample. Pre- to posttreatment changes on the 7-item CCRSA measure were statistically significant using a paired samples t test. Findings support the reliability and sensitivity of the CCRSA in assessing participants' self-report of communication confidence. Further evaluation of communication confidence is required with larger and more diverse samples.
authors.affiliation: Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.
authors.forename: Leora R
authors.initials: LR
authors.lastname: Cherney
authors.forename: Edna M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Babbitt
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Semik
authors.forename: Allen W
authors.initials: AW
authors.lastname: Heinemann
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001037:Aphasia / Q000523:psychology* / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D003142:Communication; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007808:Language Therapy / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult