I have a quick question.

I would like to create an index for decisionmaking in household. I have done factor analysis on a set of items that measure decisionmaking. Everything is fine for now. I'm having a hard time intepreting my index . Can someone help please. Detailed description

Items in questionnaire q6191 - What type of food to buy for the home q6192- How much money to spend on food q6193- When to buy snacks for the kids q6197- How much money to spend on your children’s clothes q6198- How much money to spend on your children’s education q6199- When to spend money for your children’s health

responses 1=Respondent (woman); 2=Husband; 3=Husband and respondent together; 4=Other; 5=No children; 6=Never used money for this purpose

I am interested in creating a composite index of women's participation in decision making. If response is 1 or 3 then woman participates in decisionmaking. If its 2 then woman does not participate in decisionmaking else will be treated as systems missing. The total score i can get from sum of all factors is 6 and the lowest 0. 0 to me means woman fully participates in decisionmaking and a 6 means she does not at all. However i do not know how to interpret values falling inbetween. Should I recode all item responses 0 and 1 giving 0 values if response is 1 and 3 and giving 1 if response is 2 else treat as systems missing? How should i intepret this binary variable since scores will range from 0 -6. What procedures should i use in spss to work through this problem. If anyone can suggest systax that will be helpful.

Yours ,

Chiremba