The validation of a social functioning questionnaire in an African postconflict context

Femke Verduin, Willem F. Scholte, Theoneste Rutayisire, Wim B. Busschers, Karien Stronks

This study evaluated the reliability and criterion validity of the Byumba Social Functioning Questionnaire (BSFQ), an instrument to measure social functioning in Rwanda. The instrument was locally composed in concordance with a well-described method for culture-specific and sex-specific function assessment. Respondents in a Northern Province of Rwanda (N = 393) were assessed with the BSFQ and a 19-item scale (SF-19) drawn from the Medical Outcomes Study 36-Item Short-Form (SF-36). The BSFQ's internal consistency was just acceptable for women but poor for men, while the SF-19 had good to excellent internal consisteny. BSFQ total scores showed a strong floor effect, while the SF-19 showed more variation in total score distribution. The BSFQ did not perform as well as we expected, and appears not to be suitable for measuring social functioning in the study context. This outcome seems to reflect the conceptualization of social functioning used in constructing the BSFQ. Implications for the development of culture-specific measures of functional status are discussed.