Validating the Empowerment Scale with a Multisite Sample of Consumers of Mental Health Services

Objective: Empowerment is a key aspect of recovery and a common term in the mental health field, but there are few consistent definitions or validated measures of the construct. This study conducted psychometric testing on the Empowerment Scale, a widely used measure in the field.

Methods: As part of the Consumer-Operated Multi-Site study funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, consumers with a psychiatric disability were administered the Empowerment Scale along with several other scales to measure clinical status and psychosocial factors.

Results: Analyses produced five factors with acceptable fit statistics. The total scale demonstrated excellent reliability and validity.

Conclusions: Analyses provide additional evidence that the total Empowerment Scale score is a reliable, valid measure; subscales of the scale appear less robust. Empowerment is considered an essential factor in recovery-oriented programs and systems, and the use of psychometrically sound measures such as the Empowerment Scale therefore may be useful to evaluators.