The following is a summary of “Evaluating the psychometric properties of three WHO instruments to assess knowledge about human rights, attitudes towards persons with mental health conditions and psychosocial disabilities, and practices related to substitute-decision making and coercion in mental health,” published in the July 2024 issue of Psychiatry by Moro et al.

Existing tools to assess the knowledge of the rights of people with mental health conditions and their attitudes towards their role as rights holders lack proper evaluation of their validity and reliability.

Researchers conducted a prospective study evaluating 3 questionnaires for reliability and validity, providing information. These questionnaires focus on knowledge (WHO QR Knowledge), attitudes (WHO QR Attitudes), and practices (WHO QR Practices).

They developed an online survey from the WHO. The questionnaires were assessed for content and face validity. Various methods, like confirmatory factor analysis, were used to assess the questionnaire’s construct validity. Also, internal response consistency was evaluated using Cronbach’s alpha and test re-test reliability using Pearson’s and Spearman’s r coefficients. 

The results showed that all 3 questionnaires are valid and evaluate the required parameters. This suggests questionnaires developed are good tools for understanding what people know, think, and do regarding human rights in mental health—both in services and the community.

Investigators concluded that these questionnaires are legit and can help mental health services in the general population for a better understanding of the current situation in human rights in mental health. 

Source: frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1435608/abstract