The Fidelity Assessment Common Ingredients Tool: Does it Measure Empowerment and Satisfaction with Peer Run Programs?

Abstract

Research Objectives To investigate whether the Fidelity Assessment Common Ingredients Tool (FACIT) has a relationship between empowerment and satisfaction with people who have psychiatric disabilities and attend Peer Operated Service Programs (POSP) in New Jersey. Design The FACIT was administered along with the Personal Empowerment Scale (PES), the Making Decisions Empowerment Scale (MDES), and the Self-help Agency Satisfaction Scale (SHASS). Two research assistants administered the FACIT, and on a subsequent visit, administered the three surveys. Canonical correlational analysis (Hair et al., 2015) was used to determine if there was a relationship between the FACIT and satisfaction and empowerment. Setting The study occurred in community POSP where people with psychiatric disabilities attend for mutual self-help, and peer led activities (Swarbrick, 2007). Participants A convenience sample consisting of 206 participants, who self-identified as having a serious mental illness, participated from 19 POSP. Interventions Not applicable. Main Outcome Measures The FACIT survey consists of 46 items and six domains and measures how well a peer run organization is adhering to the peer model (Johnsen et al., 2005; SAMHSA, 2011). The PES focuses on independent social functioning (Segal et al., 1995), the MDES measures self-empowerment (Rogers et. al., 1997), and the SHASS measures satisfaction with self-help programs (Segal et al., 2000). Results Canonical correlational analysis found a relationship between satisfaction and empowerment and the six subscales of the FACIT (p < .05). Canonical weights indicated that PES contributed to the highest variance, and canonical cross loadings had a moderate correlation between PES and the FACIT. Redundancy analysis determined that the shared variance between the FACIT and satisfaction and empowerment was very small. Further analysis discovered that 62% of the FACIT items are about structure and organization, with 27% about empowerment, and 11% about satisfaction. Conclusions While a relationship was found between empowerment and satisfaction and the FACIT, these do not appear to be the main focus, which is more about how the POSP is structured and organized. Implications for using the FACIT at peer programs will be presented. Author(s) Disclosures None. To investigate whether the Fidelity Assessment Common Ingredients Tool (FACIT) has a relationship between empowerment and satisfaction with people who have psychiatric disabilities and attend Peer Operated Service Programs (POSP) in New Jersey. The FACIT was administered along with the Personal Empowerment Scale (PES), the Making Decisions Empowerment Scale (MDES), and the Self-help Agency Satisfaction Scale (SHASS). Two research assistants administered the FACIT, and on a subsequent visit, administered the three surveys. Canonical correlational analysis (Hair et al., 2015) was used to determine if there was a relationship between the FACIT and satisfaction and empowerment. The study occurred in community POSP where people with psychiatric disabilities attend for mutual self-help, and peer led activities (Swarbrick, 2007). A convenience sample consisting of 206 participants, who self-identified as having a serious mental illness, participated from 19 POSP. Not applicable. The FACIT survey consists of 46 items and six domains and measures how well a peer run organization is adhering to the peer model (Johnsen et al., 2005; SAMHSA, 2011). The PES focuses on independent social functioning (Segal et al., 1995), the MDES measures self-empowerment (Rogers et. al., 1997), and the SHASS measures satisfaction with self-help programs (Segal et al., 2000). Canonical correlational analysis found a relationship between satisfaction and empowerment and the six subscales of the FACIT (p < .05). Canonical weights indicated that PES contributed to the highest variance, and canonical cross loadings had a moderate correlation between PES and the FACIT. Redundancy analysis determined that the shared variance between the FACIT and satisfaction and empowerment was very small. Further analysis discovered that 62% of the FACIT items are about structure and organization, with 27% about empowerment, and 11% about satisfaction. While a relationship was found between empowerment and satisfaction and the FACIT, these do not appear to be the main focus, which is more about how the POSP is structured and organized. Implications for using the FACIT at peer programs will be presented.