W. Gardner et al., 2 SCALES FOR MEASURING PATIENTS PERCEPTIONS FOR COERCION DURING MENTAL-HOSPITAL ADMISSION, Behavioral sciences & the law, 11(3), 1993, pp. 307-321
Legal and extra-legal coercion are pervasive in mental hospital admiss
ion and there are sharp disputes about its appropriate role. This arti
cle presents two scales for measuring psychiatric patients' perception
s of coercion during hospital admission and reports data on these scal
es' internal consistency. We measure patients' perceptions of coercion
by asking questions, in either an interview or questionnaire format,
about their experience of lack of control, choice, influence, and free
dom in hospital admission. Patients' responses to questions about thei
r perceptions of coercion were highly internally consistent. The inter
nal consistency of the scale was robust with respect to variation in s
ite, instrument format, patient population, and interview procedure. C
orrespondence analysis was used to construct two numerical scales of p
erceived coercion.