Featured Tool: Empowerment Scale

A group of participants at Waterloo Regional Self Help are quite clear about their view of recovery. You're getting better when you can take more control over your life, build an identity that doesn't revolve around being a client or patient, and become involved in the broader community. The term "empowerment" is often used to describe this set of outcomes and is becoming an important part of outcome evaluation. Yet measuring empowerment is a challenge.

Sally Rogers from the Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation at Boston University took on this task several years ago, partnering with a number of consumer activists to define empowerment and develop an appropriate measure. The result of their work is "Making Decisions," a 28-item scale measuring five broad areas – self-esteem, power, community activism, control of future, righteous anger. Tests of the scale showed that the items are measuring a common concept and can distinguish among consumers in different settings. A number of states have included "Making Decisions" in their mental health information systems.

In our study, we are using 16 items from "Making Decisions" combined with items from the Rosenberg scale, a commonly used measure of self-esteem, for a total of 23 questions. Consumers are comfortable completing our scale which only takes a few minutes. How program participation affects empowerment remains to be seen. We'll keep you posted. The items that make up the CMHEI Empowerment Scale are listed here. The complete scale can also be downloaded from the Instruments section of the website.

CMHEI Empowerment Scale

Please indicate whether you strongly agree, agree, disagree or strongly disagree with the following statements:

1. I am usually confident about the decisions I make.
2. Most of the misfortunes in my life were due to bad luck.
3. People working together can have an effect on their community.
4. Making waves never gets you anywhere.
5. When I make plans, I am almost certain to make them work.
6. Usually, I feel alone.
7. Experts are in the best position to decide what people should do or learn.
8. I generally accomplish what I set out to do.
9. People should try to live their lives the way they want to.
10. You can't fight the government.
11. I feel powerless most of the time.
12. When I am unsure about something, I usually go along with the group.
13. People have a right to make their own decisions, even if they are bad ones.
14. On the whole, I am satisfied with myself.
15. At times, I think that I am no good at all.
16. I feel that I have a number of good qualities.
17. I am able to do things as well as most other people.
18. I feel I do not have much to be proud of.
19. I certainly feel useless at times.
20. I feel that I'm a person of worth, at least on an equal basis with others.
21. I wish I could have more respect for myself.
22. All in all, I am inclined to feel that I am a failure.
23. I have a positive attitude toward myself.

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