Psychometric Properties of a COVID-19 Impact Scale Among a Sample of Individuals with Disabilities

Lequerica, Anthony; Strober, Lauren; Weber, Erica; Krch, Denise; Genova, Helen; Costa, Silvana L; Lengenfelder, Jean; Goverover, Yael; Chiaravalloti, Nancy

Research Objectives To examine psychometric properties of a COVID-19 Impact Scale among individuals with disabilities. Design Cross-sectional analysis. Setting Web-based survey. Participants A sample of 418 individuals with multiple sclerosis (62.68%), traumatic brain injury (n=15.07%), and spinal cord injury (22.25%) completed a survey about experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. The sample was 71.01% female. Ages ranged from 21-84 (M=52.00, SD=11.56). Interventions Not Applicable. Main Outcome Measures COVID-19: Impact of the Pandemic and Health Related Quality of Life (Penedo, Cohen, Bower, & Antoni, 2020). Analysis was restricted to the Psychosocial and Practical Experiences portion of the questionnaire, which yields a Total Measure Score representing overall impact of the pandemic and has three subscales (Distress, Disruption, and Resiliency). Results Principal components analysis of Rasch residuals demonstrated lack of unidimensionality for the overall Total Measure Score. Therefore, subscales were analyzed separately, each showing satisfactory internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha>0.80). The person separation index was 2.48 for Distress, 2.00 for Disruption, and 1.88 for Resiliency. Infit mean square values and corrected item-total correlations were satisfactory for all items on the Distress subscale. However, two items on Disruption and two on Resiliency had corrected item-total correlations < 0.30 and/or infit mean square values>1.30. Conclusions The three subscales on the COVID-19 impact scale had good internal consistency reliability and could differentiate the sample into at least two levels on their respective constructs. Two items referring to pandemic-related practices of health care providers showed poor fit on the Disruption subscale, and items referring to acceptance and the ability to provide others with instrumental social support showed poor fit on the Resiliency subscale. Overall, the study suggests that the instrument provides a reliable indicator of various levels of COVID impact in clinical samples with neurological disabilities. Author(s) Disclosures All authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.