Development of the University of Rhode Island Change Assessment (URICA) Scale: A Device for the Measurement of Stages of Change

Abstract

The majority of psychotherapy outcome studies have failed to adequately demonstrate the superiority of one theoretical orientation over another consistently across types of problems. A "transtheoretical" model was developed as a synthesis of the therapeutic change processes. An important finding of research on the transtheoretical model was the presence of a temporal dimension associated with the change processes. The present study developed an instrument to measure the temporal component, or "stages of change." An initial pool of 125 items was reduced to a final test of 32 items on the basis of principal components analysis, Chronbach's coefficient alpha, and item analysis results. One of the five initial theoretical stages was eliminated based on the analyses. The resulting four stages are represented by high loadings on four distinct components. Fifty-eight percent of the total variance is accounted for by these four components. Chronbach's coefficient alphas for the four scales range from .88 to .89. A cluster analysis was performed on the scores for each subject on each of the four scales. The resulting 18-cluster solution produced 7 major and 2 minor client profiles that are highly distinct. Future studies could use these client profiles to make predictions about which processes of change are most appropriate for particular clients.