The empowering of Hong Kong Chinese families with a brain damaged member: Its investigation and measurement

This is an increasing recognition of the influential roles played by the families of brain damaged persons in rehabilitation. Although these families are expected to take up the burden of care, they are usually ill-prepared to face this long-term process. This preliminary study of empowerment is aimed at helping Hong Kong Chinese families with a brain damaged member to regain a sense of mastery over the brain damage, their environment and their lives. The impact of brain damage on families was explored in order to propose a model to guide the development of assessment and intervention, as well as for the justification of practice by health care professionals. A 52-item instrument, the empowerment questionnaire, was developed through explorative factor analysis of responses of 211 families that included a brain damaged member. This analysis yielded four interpretable factors: efficacy, knowledge, support and aspiration and they demonstrated high validity reliability.