Measurement of stable changes of self-management skills after rehabilitation: a latent state–trait analysis of the Health Education Impact Questionnaire (heiQ™)

Methods: Subjects were N = 580 patients with rheumatism, asthma, orthopedic conditions or inflammatory bowel disease, who filled out the heiQ™ at the beginning, the end of and 3 months after a disease-specific inpatient rehabilitation program in Germany. Structural equation modeling techniques were used to estimate latent trait-change models and test for measurement invariance in each heiQ™ scale. Coefficients of consistency, occasion specificity and reliability were computed.

Purpose: To assess stable effects of self-management programs, measurement instruments should primarily capture the attributes of interest, for example, the self-management skills of the measured persons. However, measurements of psychological constructs are always influenced by both aspects of the situation (states) and aspects of the person (traits). This study tests whether the Health Education Impact Questionnaire (heiQ™), an instrument assessing a wide range of proximal outcomes of self-management programs, is primarily influenced by person factors instead of situational factors. Furthermore, measurement invariance over time, changes in traits and predictors of change for each heiQ™ scale were examined.

Results: All scales showed scalar invariance over time. Reliability coefficients were high (0.80–0.94), and consistency coefficients (0.49–0.79) were always substantially higher than occasion specificity coefficients (0.14–0.38), indicating that the heiQ™ scales primarily capture person factors. Trait-changes with small to medium effect sizes were shown in five scales and were affected by sex, age and diagnostic group.

Conclusion: The heiQ™ can be used to assess stable effects in important outcomes of self-management programs over time, e.g., changes in self-management skills or emotional well-being.