The construct validity of the readiness to change questionnaire for persons with TBI

Objective: To examine the reliability and validity of the Readiness to Chan ge Questionnaire (RTC) among persons with recent traumatic brain injury. De sign: Survey Setting: Inpatient rehabilitation. Participants: One-hundred t wenty-six persons with recent TBI. Results: In the first step of the analys es the RTC measure was rescaled and shortened to produce a coherent Linear measure of readiness to change. Subsequent analyses showed that the linear measure fit a three stage model of change and correlated in meaningful ways with independent measures of alcohol problem severity. Conclusions: The RT C measure can be substantially improved by utilizing results obtained from rating scale analysis. The resulting IO-item Linear scale has good internal consistency a theoretically sound factor structure and meaningful correlat ions with external variables. Measuring readiness to change may be useful f or tailoring treatment and predicting outcomes, though mure research is nee ded in this area.