A RATING INSTRUMENT FOR THE EVALUATION OF INPATIENT REHABILITATION PROGRAMS IN CHINA - RESULTS OF RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY TESTING

To objectively evaluate in-patient rehabilitation programmes in China, we developed a new rating scale: the Inpatient Psychiatric Rehabilitation Outcome Scale (IPROS). The scale has five subscales: performance in occupational therapy, daily activities, socialisation, personal hygiene, and level of interest in external events. Evaluators (physicians or nurses) observe patients for one week before coding items on a five-point scale. Comparison of four independent evaluators' results for 32 schizophrenic patients assessed on two separate occasions indicated that the inter-rater and test-retest reliability for the overall]PROS score and for the five subscale scores was excellent (all ICC Values greater than or equal to 0.973). Validity was evaluated by comparing IPROS results with those of five other independently assessed clinical measures for 101 chronic schizophrenic patients before and after a six-month rehabilitation programme; concurrent validity and longitudinal validity were satisfactory (correlation coefficients 0.37-0.81, all P values < 0.01).