Establishing the reliability and construct validity of the Igbo version of Screening Activity Limitation and Safety Awareness scale in persons with Hansen disease.

OBJECTIVE: Leprosy or Hansen's disease is an infectious disease affecting skin and peripheral nerves. The World Health Organization (WHO) Recent Report reveals Africa as having 20,599 new cases, America 36, 178, Eastern Asia 166,445, Western pacific 5,400; totally up to 232,875 new cases. Nigeria as at 2012 had 3,805 new cases. Nerve dysfunction can lead to severe impairments, such as wounds, clawing and shortening of digits, and visual impairments that are often indicated as WHO Grade 2 disabilities. The Screening Activity Limitation Safety Awareness (SALSA) scale however, was developed to-measure self-reported activity limitation in people affected by peripheral neuropathy, and has been translated into several languages world-wide, including two of the three major indigenous languages in Nigeria (i.e. Yoruba and Hausa), leaving the Igbo language yet to be translated. This resulted in the present study, in which the scale was translated into Igbo and the psychometric properties also established to help in data collection and to promote research among the Igbo speaking people living with disabilities from Hansen's disease.

DESIGN: The research design was a cross-sectional survey, facility based with 70% RFT and 30% on MDT. Data were analysed using Cronbach's alpha and factor analyses.

RESULT: A quantitative exploration of participants' characteristics revealed that of the 40 respondents that participated in the study; 87.5% of them were predominantly from a rural population; 42.5% were males and 57.5% females. Their ages ranged between 15 and 64 years; 55% were uneducated; while 45% were educated. The SALSA Scale was interviewer-administered to the participants. Reliability analysis conducted on the data revealed high Cronbach's alpha co-efficient of 0.93 - 0.94 for the entire items on the scale. Firstly, most of the scale items correlated at least 0.3 with at least one other item on the scale, Secondly, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy was 0.71, Bartlett's test of sphericity was significant (Χ2 (190) = 482.63, P < 0.001). Finally, the communalities were all above 0.3. The principal factor analysis of the scale revealed a five factor scale, having fulfilled all the necessary conditions.

CONCLUSION: It can be concluded that the Igbo version of SALSA is reliable and valid for use among the Igbo speaking group in Nigeria.