The validity and reliability of Turkish form of the Maryland assessment of recovery in people with serious mental illness

This study was conducted with the objective of determining the validity and the reliability of the Turkish version of "The Maryland Assessment of recovery in people with serious mental illness Scale (MARS). For the language validity of the scale the shape of a methadological kind of study, the MARS was adapted to Turkish and its language validity was evaluated. After necessary arrangements, the last version of the scale was applied to 157 patients who people with serious mental illness (schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorders, majör depression) being treated in the Psychiatry polyclinics of the Şahinbey Research Hospital of Gaziantep University and Dr. Ersin Arslan State Hospital between November 2012- June 2013. After seven to fifteen days, re-test was applied to 68 patients taken from the same sample group for test- re-test reliability. Experts' view points were taken for the language validity of the scale and a factor analysis was made for the structural validity of the scale. Croanbach α reliability coefficient, item analysis, test-retest analysis were made for the evaluation of the reliability of the scale. As a result of the explanatory factor analysis, it was determined that the scale showed one-factor structure, and that Croanbach α reliability coefficient was 0.874, and that item-total-item point correlations were value of more than 0.30, except for only one item. In addition, it was found out that test-retest correlation value was 0.989 and this was found to be statistically significant (p<0.001). Consequently, it was determined that the validity and the reliability of the scale is extremely high and is a scale used to assess of recovery in people with serious mental illness in Turkish society. Keywords: Validity, reliability, recovery, mental illness