Introduction
The Participation Scale (P-scale) is a widely recognized tool used to assess social participation in individuals, especially in the context of rehabilitation, stigma reduction, and social integration programs. Developed by an international team coordinated by Dr. Wim van Brakel, the P-scale plays a key role in assessing the degree to which individuals participate in everyday activities, which is crucial for promoting inclusive societies.
The P-scale has been translated into multiple languages, including Amharic, Arabic, Bahasa Indonesia (Skala Partisipasi), Bangla, Bengali, Bugies, Chinese, Dutch, French, Hausa, Hebrew, Hindi, Igbo, Jordanian Arabic, Kiswahili, Maithili, Nepali, Portuguese, Slovak, Spanish, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Urdu, Vietnamese and Yoruba. This makes the P-scale a globally accessible tool for diverse populations. If you use a translated version of the P-scale, please ensure it is compared against the most recent English version (v6.0) to maintain consistency and accuracy.
The latest addition to the P-scale family is the 13-item Participation Scale Short Simplified (PSSS). The PSSS offers a simplified questionnaire structure compared to the original scale. It also replaced comparison with ‘peers’ with ‘others’, since peers is a concept and term that has proved to be a challenge for translation in many languages. The PSSS has been validated in several countries and works very well psychometrically. Like the original P-scale, the PSSS is intended for use in public health, rehabilitation, stigma reduction, and social integration programmes, providing a reliable and efficient way to measure social and work participation.
For more information, please contact Elizabeth Talatu Williams, Infolep & InfoNTD Coordinator.