Perceived self-care agency: a LISREL factor analysis of Bickel and Hanson's questionnaire.

The psychometric properties of Bickel and Hanson's Perceived Self-Care Agency Questionnaire (PSCAQ) (Hanson, 1981) were examined using a LISREL confirmatory factor analysis approach. Questionnaires were distributed to a convenience sample of 575 noninstitutionalized adults in northwestern Ohio; 462 questionnaires (80%) were returned. Findings indicated that the factor structure of the PSCAQ is significantly different from that described by Bickel (1982) and does not appear to conform to the expected self-care power component structure. These findings call into question the construct validity of the PSCAQ as a measure of self-care agency in non-institutionalized adults. It should be used only with extreme caution, if at all, for testing the self-care deficit theory.