Measuring Community Participation Among Japanese with Serious Mental Illnesses

Abstract

Community participation is associated with physical, cognitive, and mental health benefits for people with serious mental illnesses (SMI) and is recognized as a critical component of health functioning. Developing reliable measurement of participation in different cultural contexts and languages is important to expanding knowledge in this area. The aim of this study was to translate a psychometrically sound English-language community participation measure into Japanese and examine its test-reliability with a population of Japanese people with SMI. Self-reported data were gathered twice from 253 individuals within 48 h using the Temple University Community Participation—Japanese version (TUCP-J) at Type-B Continuous Employment Support Centers in Japan between November 2020 and February 2021. Participant responses were similar on four of the five participation subscales. At the item-level, participants provided consistent responses on 26 out of 27 of the items about amount of participation and had high item-level concordance (77–93%) on their ratings of the importance (Yes; No) of each participation activity and their reported participation sufficiency (Enough; Not Enough; Too Much: 73–88%). Overall, the results demonstrated strong evidence of test–retest reliability of the TUCP-J and identified a number of areas that were important to respondents, but where they were reporting not doing enough.

Community participation differences between Black and White adults with serious mental illness.

“…Previous research has shown that the TUCP has good evidence of reliability, evidenced by adequate test–retest reliability, ranged between .6 and .9 (Salzer et al, 2014), intermethod reliability with dairy checklist, with most item-level correlations r ≥ .05 (Salzer et al, 2015), and item-level concordance on the response of importance and sufficiency, ranged between 73% and 93% (Nagata et al, 2022). The TUCP was developed with an advisory group of people with lived experience, demonstrating content validity (Salzer et al, 2014), and the previous studies reported concurrent validity with measures of recovery and mental health in populations with SMI (e.g., Burns-Lynch et al, 2016; Nagata, McCormick, Brusilovskiy, Snethen, et al, 2021).…”

Exploring interests: A pathway to ikigai and eudaimonic well-being among people with serious mental illness.

“…Indeed, research suggests that people with SMI experience significant challenges in pursuing sources of ikigai as they tend to underestimate their abilities and self-worth, leading them to believe that they do not deserve meaning and purpose (e.g., Moro & Shimtani, 2010; Nakamura, 2013; Tanabe et al, 2016). Moreover, people with SMI are less likely to participate in activities that are found to correlate with the ikigai state, such as employment, family activities, and leisure pursuits (Iwasaki et al, 2014; Nagata et al, 2022). Researchers often attribute these challenges to the internalized stigma of mental illness, with which individuals “endorse stereotypes about mental illness, anticipate social rejection, consider stereotypes to be self-relevant, and believe they are devalued members of society” (Livingston & Boyd, 2010, p. 2151).…”