Measuring Equine-Assisted Therapy: Validation and Confirmatory Factor Analysis of an ICF-Based Standardized Assessment-Tool

Isabel Stolz, Volker Anneken and Ingo Froböse
Additional contact information
Isabel Stolz: Research Institute for Inclusion through Physical Activity and Sport, German Sport University Cologne, 50226 Frechen, Germany
Volker Anneken: Research Institute for Inclusion through Physical Activity and Sport, German Sport University Cologne, 50226 Frechen, Germany
Ingo Froböse: Institute of Health Promotion and Clinical Movement Science, German Sport University, 50933 Cologne, Germany

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 5, 1-27

Abstract: The International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) of the World Health Organization (WHO) was established as an international framework for monitoring rehabilitation outcomes and the impacts of health interventions since, as the term “functioning” implies, it emphasizes a person’s “lived health” in addition to their biological health status. Equine-assisted therapy (EAT) represents a holistic intervention approach that aims to improve both biomedical functioning and the patient’s lived health in relation to performing activities and participating in social situations. In this study, the psychometric properties of an ICF-based digital assessment tool for the measurement of the rehabilitation impacts of EAT were analyzed via simultaneous confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) and reliability and sensitivity tests. In total, 265 patients from equine-assisted therapy centers in Germany were included for CFA. Change sensitivity was assessed via multi-level analyses based on 876 repeated assessments by 30 therapists. Results show satisfactory model-fit statistics; McDonald’s omega (ML) showed excellent scores for the total scale (ω = 0.96) and three subscales (ω = 0.95; ω = 0.95, ω = 0.93). The tool proved itself to be change sensitive and reliable (change sensitivity p ≤ 0.001), retest r = 0.745 **, p ≤ 0.001). Overall, the developed assessment tool satisfactorily fulfills psychometric requirements and can be applied in therapeutic practice.

Keywords: (outcome) assessment; factor analysis; ICF; quantitative research; rehabilitation; therapy evaluation; validation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/5/2738/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/5/2738/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:5:p:2738-:d:759537

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().