The psychometric properties of the mental health rights comprehension test

The capacity to comprehend rights under mental health legislation is an untapped area of research that deserves attention. For those committed to hospital under British Columbia's Mental Health Act, youths under 16 years are provided fewer procedural protections than those over 16 years. However, both are told their rights under that Act. Research relating to adolescents' understanding of rights is presented, primarily from the juvenile justice context. Generally, by middle adolescence, most youths understand their rights to counsel and silence as well as adults. In general, most adolescents do not appreciate the full consequences of waiving their rights, and hence do not perform up to the legal standard under criminal law. The development of a new research program is suggested by the application of rights comprehension research to the mental health arena. The primary focus of the present project is the development of a new tool for tapping comprehension of rights under the Mental Health Act: The Mental Health Rights Comprehension Test (MHRCT). The MHRCT was administered to 120 healthy adolescents and its psychometric properties and structure were investigated. While the MHRCT shows modest structural reliability and convergent validity, it demonstrates excellent interrater and test-retest reliability. Evidence for the measure's construct validity and unidimensionality were examined with factor analysis. Exploratory factor analysis did not result in a rejection of the null hypothesis of unidimensionality. Therefore, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed in an effort to determine what model of unidimensionality best fit the data. A fit assessment determined that the MHRCT fits the parallel model of unidimensionality, indicating it is a homogenous measure of rights comprehension. This project was an important first step in a research program that aims to quantify rights comprehension in a population whose rights have been the focus of debate and shifting policy.