A community-based Inventory of Current Concerns of impoverished homeless and drug-addicted minority women

Abstract

The purpose of this series of studies was to refine and evaluate the psychometric properties of a measure of the concerns of impoverished minority women who were homeless and/or drug addicted. A comprehensive review of the literature and qualitative focus groups conducted with homeless and drug-addicted minority women were used to refine the inventory of Current Concerns (ICC) (Weisman, Worden, & Sobel, 1980). A 31-item revised Community-Based Inventory of Current Concerns (CICC) was critiqued by measurements and content experts, and content validity was established. The CICC was administered to 978 black and Hispanic women who were residents of drug recovery programs or were homeless and residing in shelters, single room occupancy hotels, or with family or friends. Principal components factor analysis with varimax rotation resulted in a five-factor solution explaining 53% of the variance. These factors were labeled Competency, Personal Instability/Despondency, Survival, Drug-Related, and Parenting Concerns. Alpha reliability coefficient was .90 for the total scale and .79 to .93 for the subscales. Construct validity was demonstrated by moderate correlations (r = .54) between the total CICC and the CES-D. The revised CICC can be used for clinical and research purposes to aid in assessing the concerns of minority impoverished women.