title: Internal and Predictive Validity of the French Health of the Nation Outcome Scales: Need for Future Directions.
abstract: The Health of the Nation Outcome Scales (HoNOS) is a widely used measure of health and social functioning of people with mental illness. The goals of this study were to verify the internal validity of the one factor and several four-factor scoring structures and to evaluate the predictive validity of HoNOS items with regards to duration of hospitalization, probability of readmission in the following year and time before readmission. 6175 hospital stays at the department of psychiatry of Lausanne University Hospital were screened and the first HoNOS of each patient was taken into account (N = 2722). Data were analyzed through Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and the predictive validity of HoNOS items was evaluated with two approaches: item level regressions and latent class analysis (LCA). CFA indicated that the suggested factor structures were not supported by the data. Predictive validity of the 12 items was weak but LCA revealed five distinct and meaningful profiles that were related to length of stay or readmission. HoNOS may be more adapted to the evaluation of patients case-mix rather than to the individual level and concepts such as predictive validity may be more appropriate than internal validity to guide its use.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV), Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Philippe
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Golay
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV), Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Louis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Basterrechea
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV), Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Philippe
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Conus
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV), Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Charles
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Bonsack
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D005602:France; D006304:Health Status; D006785:Hospitals, University; D006801:Humans; D007902:Length of Stay / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care / Q000639:trends*; D010359:Patient Readmission / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011594:Psychometrics; D012917:Social Adjustment