title: Evaluating and Quantifying User and Carer Involvement in Mental Health Care Planning (EQUIP): Co-Development of a New Patient-Reported Outcome Measure.
abstract: International and national health policy seeks to increase service user and carer involvement in mental health care planning, but suitable user-centred tools to assess the success of these initiatives are not yet available. The current study describes the development of a new reliable and valid, interval-scaled service-user and carer reported outcome measure for quantifying user/carer involvement in mental health care planning. Psychometric development reduced a 70-item item bank to a short form questionnaire using a combination of Classical Test, Mokken and Rasch Analyses. Test-retest reliability was calculated using t-tests of interval level scores between baseline and 2-4 week follow-up. Items were worded to be relevant to both service users and carers. Nine items were removed following cognitive debriefing with a service user and carer advisory group. An iterative process of item removal reduced the remaining 61 items to a final 14-item scale. The final scale has acceptable scalability (Ho = .69), reliability (alpha = .92), fit to the Rasch model (χ2(70) = 97.25, p = .02), and no differential item functioning or locally dependent items. Scores remained stable over the 4 week follow-up period, indicating good test-retest reliability. The 'Evaluating the Quality of User and Carer Involvement in Care Planning (EQUIP)' scale displays excellent psychometric properties and is capable of unidimensional linear measurement. The scale is short, user and carer-centred and will be of direct benefit to clinicians, services, auditors and researchers wishing to quantify levels of user and carer involvement in care planning.
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing, Midwifery & Social Work, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Penny
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Bee
authors.affiliation: Cambridge Centre for Health Services Research, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom.|The Psychometrics Centre, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Chris
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Gibbons
authors.affiliation: School of Health Sciences, Queen's Medical Centre, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Callaghan
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing, Midwifery & Social Work, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Claire
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Fraser
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing, Midwifery & Social Work, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Karina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Lovell
mesh_terms: D017028:Caregivers; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006285:Health Planning; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008603:Mental Health; D008605:Mental Health Services; D063868:Patient Outcome Assessment; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires