Validity and utility of the Craig Hospital Inventory of Environmental Factors for Korean community-dwelling elderly with or without stroke

The social environmental barriers are considered to be important because the social participation of people with impairments would be facilitated by the prevention and reduction of environmental barriers. The Craig Hospital Inventory of Environmental Factors (CHIEF) is one of the few scales to assess the environmental barriers. In this study, we developed the Korean version of CHIEF and evaluated its construct validity and utility in a sample of Korean community-dwelling elderly with or without stroke. We evaluated the construct validity of the CHIEF by testing the original five-factor structure using a confirmatory factor analysis in 400 elderly in Seoul, Korea. The utility of the CHIEF was then assessed by examining the relationships between individual characteristics, Barthel Index and perceived environmental barriers, measured by the CHIEF, using a structural equation modeling approach. The confirmatory factor analysis result demonstrated the validity of a second-order factor model of the CHIEF comprising the five factors as first-order factors. The perceived environmental barrier was a second-order factor when provided acceptable fit indices after two modifications. The structural equation modeling indicates that perceived environmental barriers are significantly related to activities of daily life but not age, gender, and the episode of stroke. The CHIEF is useful in measuring environmental factors for Korean older adults with or without stroke. (c) 2005 Tohoku University Medical Press.