Properties of the Portuguese version of the empowerment scale with mental health organization users

BACKGROUND: This study examines the reliability and validity of the Portuguese version of the Empowerment Scale (ES) to be used in the community/psychosocial mental health field. Authors also reviewed the properties of the development and cross-cultural adaptation of the ES. Because mental health services are required to encourage empowerment and recovery-oriented interventions, adequate empowerment-oriented outcome measures are needed to evaluate services and study interventions across countries. METHODS: The current research was part of a larger research project with 213 participants. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to observe the ES’s construct-related validity, and a reliability analysis for internal consistency. The ES concurrent validity with the recovery and psychiatric symptoms measures was also assessed using the Pearson’s correlation coefficient. RESULTS: The CFA supported the five-factor configuration for the refined model of measure as satisfactory. The Portuguese version of the ES presented an overall satisfactory reliability (α = .79) and was positively correlated with personal recovery (r = .71) and inversely with psychiatric symptoms (r = -.22). CONCLUSIONS: The overall scale was considered reliable and valid to be used by Portuguese researchers and practitioners to evaluate empowering interventions in mental health services. Furthermore, in the effort to increase ES construct-related validity, this article suggests further improvements to enhance the empowerment measure.