Psychometric evaluation of a scale to assess satisfaction with life among people with intellectual disabilities living in community residences.
A new 12-item scale lets adults with mild–moderate ID rate their own housing, meals, leisure, and life satisfaction in minutes.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team built a short scale that asks adults with mild or moderate intellectual disability how they feel about their home life. They wrote 12 plain-language questions about housing, meals, leisure, and overall happiness. One hundred thirty-two group-home residents answered the draft items. The researchers checked if answers clumped into clear themes and if the same person scored about the same two weeks later.
What they found
The 12 items formed four tidy groups that matched the topics they planned: housing, meals, fun things, and general life. Statistical tests showed the scale hangs together well and gives steady scores. Adults with mild to moderate ID could answer reliably, so the tool is ready for everyday use.
How this fits with other research
Johnson et al. (1994) already showed that adults with ID can give steady self-reports on mood questions. H et al. extend that idea to satisfaction, proving the same consistency holds for life-in-residence items.
Scior et al. (2023) later created the WEMWBS-ID for general wellbeing. Both studies used 12–14 items and found good reliability, giving you two short choices: use H’s scale for housing issues and K’s scale for overall mental health.
Vassos et al. (2023) reviewed nine mental-health tools and warned that most lack solid validity. H’s satisfaction scale is not in that review, but it meets the same standards M calls for, so it joins the small trustworthy list.
Why it matters
You now have a quick, self-report satisfaction scale made for adults in group homes. Hand it out before annual plan meetings or after program changes. Scores show which life domains need attention straight from the resident’s view, meeting both ethics and quality standards without extra staff time.
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Join Free →Print the 12-item scale, read each question aloud, and let your resident circle smiley or frown faces to flag any dissatisfaction to address this week.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: In the context of a health intervention among people with intellectual disabilities (ID), there was a need to assess satisfaction with some aspects of life, in order to monitor both potential positive and negative effects of the intervention. The aim of the present study was to develop and evaluate an easily administered scale for assessing satisfaction with home environment and leisure time among people with mild or moderate ID, living in community residences. METHODS: A number of questions were constructed to measure satisfaction with home environment and leisure time. The questions were answered by 132 adults with mild or moderate ID, living in community residences in Sweden. The dimensionality of the scale was evaluated by factor analysis, and the reliability was estimated using Cronbach's alpha coefficients. RESULTS: The analysis supported a four-factor solution with 12 items. The four factors were: (I) Satisfaction with housing environment; (II) Satisfaction with life; (III) Satisfaction with meals; and (IV) Satisfaction with recreational activity. The four factors explained almost 70% of the variance in the data set. Cronbach alpha coefficients for all scales were above 0.70, indicating that the reliabilities of the scales were satisfactory. Correlations between the four sub-scales ranged from 0.06 to 0.52, indicating low to moderate inter-correlations between the four sub-scales. CONCLUSION: The scale has fairly good psychometric properties and is easy to administer. The scale, which can be further improved, can be an important resource in health intervention studies.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2013 · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2788.2011.01531.x