Development of the Occupational Justice Scale for Refugees and Investigation of Its Psychometric Properties.

Abstract

Importance: Although occupational justice is an important construct for occupational therapy, the Occupational Justice Scale for Refugees (OJS-R) is, to our knowledge, the first of such scales developed in this field.

Objective: To develop an occupational justice scale designed specifically for refugees and to evaluate its psychometric properties.

Design: This study was conducted as face-to-face interviews and self-report surveys with refugees. The Davis technique was applied twice to 12 expert panelists, and the test form was administered to 603 individuals. Item analysis was conducted to evaluate the internal consistency of the scale. An exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were also performed to examine the construct validity of the scale.

Setting: Four different provinces in Turkey: Istanbul, Ankara, Elazig, and Bingöl.

Participants: Data from 603 Syrian refugees were included in the analyses.

Outcomes and measures: Information from completed informed consent forms, the OJS-R, and the Occupational Balance Questionnaire-11, Turkish version (OBQ11-T).

Results: The OJS-R explained 70.179% of the variance and revealed a five-factor structure (occupational deprivation, alienation, marginalization, apartheid, and imbalance). The scale demonstrated high reliability, with an interclass correlation of .989 and Cronbach's α of .993. Test-retest correlation coefficients were robust, and the correlation between the OJS-R and OBQ11-T were statistically significant (r = .987, p < .001). These results validate the 30-item scale structure consisting of five dimensions.

Conclusions and relevance: The OJS-R may be a reliable and valid measure of occupational justice and appropriate for populations such as refugees. Plain-Language Summary: Occupational justice is a critical perspective of social structures that promote social, political, and economic changes to enable individuals to meet their occupational potential and experience well-being. Refugees often experience occupational injustice, even though there is no scale to evaluate occupational justice. This study is a scale development study. We developed the Occupational Justice Scale for Refugees (OJS-R), which, to our knowledge, is the first scale designed specifically to measure the levels of occupational justice experienced by refugees. This study's results may simplify greater consideration and evaluation of occupational justice by occupational therapists. Furthermore, the OJS-R may encourage occupational therapists to include occupational justice in their refugee intervention programs.