Validity and reliability of Malay version of empowerment scale among patients with mental illness attending psychiatric rehabilitation services in East Coast Malaysia

Introduction: One of the substantial elements for mental health and social services nowadays is to bring patients with mental illness back to the community. Among the most established method identified to achieve this target is via empowerment in the psychiatry rehabilitation service settings. So far, there is no validated questionnaire available for local population. Therefore there is a need to validate the Malay version of the questionnaire so that research can be conducted to explore on empowerment among patients with mental illness in Malaysia whom most of them are fluent to converse in Malay language. Methodology: A cross sectional study, involving 240 patients with mental illness, was conducted from December 2019 until April 2020 at several psychiatry rehabilitation services in the government hospital in East Coast Malaysia. The original English version of Empowerment Scale was M-ES translated into Malay Language using forward and backward translation technique by a group of experts. Participants then completed the Malay version of Empowerment Scale. Data was analyzed for construct validity by performing confirmatory factor analysis. Reliability analysis was also done to measure the internal consistency. Results: In this study, final model of M-ES comprised of 4 factors with 23 items, compared to original version that has 5 factors with 25 items. The finding revealed satisfactory fit indices (RMSEA=0.045, SRMR= 0.049, CFI=0.923, TLI=0.913) and satisfactory overall Cronbach alpha (α=0.90). Conclusion The study revealed that 4 factors model with 23 items of the Malay version of M-ES has satisfactory psychometric properties. The overall scale was considered to be valid and reliable to measure construct empowerment among patients with mental illness in Malaysia