The construct validity of the readiness to change questionnaire for persons with TBI

Objective: To examine the reliability and validity of the Readiness to Change Questionnaire (RTC) among persons with recent traumatic brain injury. Design: Survey. Setting: Inpatient rehabilitation. Participants: One-hundred twenty, six persons with recent TBI. Results: In the first step of the analyses the RTC measure was rescaled and shortened to produce a coherent linear measure of readiness to change. Subsequent analyses showed that the linear measure fit a three stage model of change and correlated in meaningful ways with independent measures of alcohol problem severity. Conclusions: The RTC measure can be substantially improved by utilizing results obtained from rating scale analysis. The resulting 10-item linear scale has good internal consistency, a theoretically sound factor structure and meaningful correlations with external variables. Measuring readiness to change may be useful for tailoring treatment and predicting outcomes, though more research is needed in this area.