Needs and Quality of Life of families of people in early ages with disabilities in Costa Rica; A survey adaptation and validation.

Abstract

Introduction:  Determine the support needs of families who has a member with intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) in early ages, in terms of quality of life, is essential for early intervention programs. Costa Rica does not have research around the theme, nor adapted scales for evaluation of family needs. Consequently, the objective of this study is to validate the Scale for the Evaluation of Family Needs (EFNS), for the Costa Rican population.

Methodology:  Observational, quantitative study of psychometric type, which was carried out in a sample of families of people with IDD under 18 years of age, using as a population framework the  Register of the Special Education Centers of Costa Rica, providing by the Ministry of Public Education. Three stages were carried out: first the Expert Judgment to review the items, using Cohen's Kappa indicator in order to determine the level of concordance; second, a pilot test with 12 families was carried out. As a result of both phases, the first version of the ENF-CR was obtained, with a total of 68 items culturally validated. In the third phase, the ENF-CR, as well as the Costa Rican Family Quality of Life Scale (FQoL-CR), was applied to the selected sample.

Results:  The results show that the psychometric properties of the EFNS-CR are good. The exploratory factor analysis corroborated the construct validity that is specified in a solution of 61 items distributed in seven factors. Likewise, the estimation of the reliability coefficient shows an excellent internal consistency, with a Cronbach's alpha of 97.78%. While, regarding the validity of the criterion, the evidence showed that there is no significant linear correlation between the mean scores of the FQoL-CR and the EFNS-CR scales.

Conclusion:  the EFNS-CR, has contrasted psychometric properties to be considered a tool with very good reliability and validity, to be used in the Costa Rican context.

Keywords:  Family needs assessment; Intellectual disability; Family quality of life, validation, Costa Rica.