The construct validity of empowerment among consumers of mental health services

Subscales of the Empowerment Scale (Rogers, E.S., Chamberlin, J., Ellison, M.L., Crean, T., 1997. A consumer-constructed scale to measure empowerment among users of mental health services. Psychiatr. Serv. 48, 1042-1047) were examined to see whether they fit a model of consumer empowerment that distinguishes self- and community orientations. In addition, the relationship of these two superordinate factors to several psychosocial factors was examined. Thirty-five participants in a partial hospitalization program were administered the Empowerment Scale and measures of quality of life, social support, self-esteem, psychiatric symptoms, needs and resources, global functioning, and verbal intelligence. Analysis of the subscales of the Empowerment Scale yielded two factors consistent with self- and community orientations to empowerment. Correlational analyses revealed that the two superordinate factors were associated with different sets of psychosocial variables. A self-orientation to empowerment was significantly associated with quality of life, social support, self-esteem, and psychiatric symptoms. Community orientation was correlated with self-esteem, resources, verbal intelligence, and ethnicity. The implications of these findings for a model of consumer empowerment are discussed. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.