Validation of an instrument to assess the Centers for Psychosocial Care (CAPS), version for professionals: Assess-CAPS-P

Abstract

The Assess-CAPS-P instrument aims to assess how the main attributes of psychosocial care are shaped in daily practices in Brazil's Centers for Psychosocial Care (CAPS), with different versions for users, healthcare professionals, and family members. This study analyzed the psychometric characteristics of Assess-CAPS for professionals, drawing on the participation of 195 professionals from CAPS. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed for Assess-CAPS-P, testing two factorial structure models - single-factored and eight-factored -, beside convergence analysis with the instrument SATIS-BR (Patients' Satisfaction with Mental Health Services Scale). CFA indicated the models' satisfactory results, with the eight-factor theoretical model used for the subsequent analyses and discussions, presenting the following goodness-of-fit parameters: χ2 = 765.51, χ /gl = 1.20, p = 0.001, CFI = 0.93, TLI = 0.92, RMSEA = 0.03 (0.02-0.04), and factor loads of the items with values ranging between 0.76 and 0.33. Correlations between factors were mostly moderate (varying between rho = 0.38 and rho = 0.71), and convergent validity showed that the dimensions of Assess-CAPS-P correlate significantly and moderately with the global assessment and with all the SATIS-BR dimensions. Assess-CAPS-P presents adequate reliability and validity and highlights the importance of an instrument that proposes to assess the quality of CAPS, establishing indicators and parameters that allow systematic assessments via different social actors, complementing the assessment of satisfaction with the instruments already proposed.