Preliminary development and content validity of a measure of Australian Aboriginal cultural engagement

Objectives. Aboriginal people form one of the populations most in need of mental health and substance abuse services within Australia, although many services are not adequately sensitive to, or inclusive of, relevant aspects of Aboriginal culture in their programmes. The Aboriginal Cultural Engagement Survey (ACES) was developed with the objective of assessing the level of cultural engagement of Aboriginal clients. A measure of cultural engagement is an important step in establishing an association between culture and health benefits, so that future interventions may be designed which better meet the cultural needs of Aboriginal Australians within health services. Design. The process of development of the ACES involved four stages of scale development utilising a series of group discussions and reviews with Aboriginal consultants. Assessment of content validity is conducted using the Content Validity Index (CVI). Results. The ACES was found to have excellent content validity with CVIs over 0.80 for all items in the final version. Conclusion. The ACES shows promise for being a useful tool in assessing the cultural engagement of Australian Aboriginal clients. There is a need for further psychometric assessment and field trials to assess its utility.