Chronic illness adjustment scale (CIAS): Development and validation

Abstract

Objectives The objectives of this study were to (i) develop a self-report instrument to measure adjustment to chronic illness, (ii) evaluate its core structure and (iii) study various psychometric properties in the development of this instrument. Method The entire process of developing and validating the instrument is conducted in different phases: item writing and content validation; exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to extract dimensions of the instrument; reliability and validity testing. A total of 1095 participants were included in the study. The EFA was run using IBM SPSS 23 and CFA was done by AMOS 21. Results The Cronbach alpha of the chronic illness adjustment scale was found to be .70. The instrument correlates positively with illness perception and well-being which supports the notion that the chronic illness adjustment scale has satisfactory convergent validity. Discussion The multifaceted nature of the chronic illness adjustment scale can serve as a global indicator of adjustment to chronic illness, allowing various interventions to flow toward the healthcare arena.