Report on the development of New Zealand norms for REHAB, the rehabilitation evaluation scale

Abstract

The impending closure or down-sizing of many psychiatric institutions had led to renewed interest in the assessment and rehabilitation of chronic psychiatric patients. This has resulted in the need for improved assessment methods for this group. One method which has often been used in the assessment of chronic psychiatric patients is the behaviour-rating scale. In 1990, a large scale administration of REHAB (Rehabilitation Evaluation Hall and Baker), a recently developed behaviour-rating scale, took place as part of an extensive review of the longstay patient population at Porirua Hospital. The present study reviewed a number of scales which are used in the assessment of psychiatric patients, including REHAB, and examined the factor structure and reliability of that scale in some detail. In addition, a comprehensive set of New Zealand norms for REHAB were developed based on the ratings of 275 patients. Findings from the present study indicate that although the factor structure of REHAB is a little simpler than that proposed by Baker and Hall (1984), it is nevertheless a reliable instrument and conforms to the methodological criteria for rating scales put forward by Hall (1980) and updated by McDowell and Newell (1987).