the Function Assessment Scale

Description

The Function Assessment Scale (Bah et al., 2025) is designed to screen perinatal women’s ability to perform daily tasks. The scale development began with a preliminary 12-item version exploring the activities pregnant women and new mothers undertake for themselves, their families, and their communities. The scale’s design was based on a technique by Bolton and Tang (2002). These items were translated into Krio and then back-translated into English, with the final version linguistically validated in Krio. During development, five items were removed due to cultural inappropriateness or not being considered daily tasks. The scale was administered to pregnant women and new mothers in the Western Area and Bombali. The item “cooking” was added, resulting in a 5-item scale. The results indicated that the deletion of the third item, “Engage in income-generating activities,” would increase the alpha value. This was attributed to the low participation and scores related to income-generating activities among the women surveyed.

Alternate Test Names

Function Scale

Purpose

The primary purpose of this scale is to assess perinatal women’s perceptions of their ability to perform daily tasks.

Validity

No validity data is Available

Reliability

The internal consistency of the 7-item scale was reported with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.890. Analysis indicated that removing the item “Engage in income-generating activities” would increase the alpha value to 0.92.

Factor Analysis

No factor analysis data is Available

Test Methodology

The test methodology included assessing test reliability through internal consistency measures.

Population Details

The scale was administered in Sierra Leone. The respondents included pregnant women and new mothers.

Age Group

The scale is designed for use with adults (18 years and older).

Population Group

The target population includes human females.

Test Type

Original

Instrument Type

Rating Scale

Format

Instructions: Perinatal women were asked to consider each task read to them and rate the difficulty they faced in performing it compared to other perinatal women of their age. The scale used a four-point Likert scale, visually represented by a man carrying varying degrees of weight.

Language Available

The scale is available in English and Krio (Creole, Patois).

Keywords

Daily Activities; Functional Status; Mothers; Perinatal Period; Pregnancy; Adaptive Behavior Measures; Expectant Mothers.

Test Year

2025

Author

The authors of the Function Assessment Scale are Abdulai Jawo Bah, Haja Ramatulai Wurie, Mohamed Samai, Rebecca Horn, and Alastair Ager.

Author Orcid Identifier

Abdulai Jawo Bah: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3334-7882
Rebecca Horn: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9869-544X
Alastair Ager: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9474-3563

Affiliation

Abdulai Jawo Bah: Institute for Global Health and Development, Queen Margaret University
Haja Ramatulai Wurie: College of Medicine and Allied Health Sciences, University of Sierra Leone
Mohamed Samai: College of Medicine and Allied Health Sciences, University of Sierra Leone
Rebecca Horn: Institute for Global Health and Development, Queen Margaret University
Alastair Ager: Institute for Global Health and Development, Queen Margaret University

Email

Abdulai Jawo Bah: [email protected]

files

No file is Available

Permissions

To obtain permissions, contact the corresponding author.

Fee

There is no fee for using this scale.

Correspondence Address

Abdulai Jawo Bah: [email protected]

Reference’s

Bah, A. J., Wurie, H. R., Samai, M., Horn, R., & Ager, A. (2025). Developing and validating the Sierra Leone perinatal psychological distress scale through an emic-etic approach. Journal of Affective Disorders Reports, 19, Article 100852. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadr.2024.100852

Items of the Function Assessment Scale

This is a 5-item measure.