Development and Validation of Forman Readiness to Change Scale for Drug Addiction

Purpose: The present study aimed to develop an indigenous valid and reliable scale to measure the readiness to change in patients with drug addiction.Design/Methodology/Approach: approach in which theories behind the transtheoretical model of change and drug addiction were examined along with semi-structured interviews and Focus Group Discussions. Phase one of the present study was scale construction, for this purpose initial items pool was generated from literature, focus groups of ward boys and nurses, interviews of psychologists, and in-depth interviews of diagnosed patients of drug abuse. Major themes were extracted by using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis and transformed into statements. For content validity, three experts were requested to rate items on a Likert-type scale and items were included or excluded by 1/3 ratio. For construct validity scale was administered on 100 diagnosed patients with drug addiction.Findings: Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) with the Varimax rotation method and Kaisar Normalization extracted three factors. The factors were named after stages of readiness for change including pre contemplation, contemplation and action stage.Implications/Originality/Value: This study contributed to psychometric research through the development of an indigenous scale to assess readiness to change on the transtheoretical model of behavior change in Pakistan. No such tool was found available presently to measure this and readiness was being measured on an international scale.