Validation of the French Version of the Health of the Nation Outcome ScaleHoNOS-F)

Objective: This study reports the validation of the French version of the H ealth of the Nation Outcome Scales (HoNOS-F), a questionnaire developed to measure health and social functioning of people with mental illness. Method: Once each statement was tested for readability, the scale was admin istered to 3 samples of people suffering from severe mental disorders to es timate its reliability, and validity. More specifically, tests were run to establish the internal consistency, the stability, and the interrater relia bility of the HoNOS-F. Confirmative factor analyses and mean differences ac cording to age, sex, and diagnosis were also conducted to evaluate respecti vely, construct- and criterion-related validity. Results: Coefficients obtained from the various tests show that the scale i s reliable only when the total score is used. The confirmatory factor analy ses indicate that the observed data do not fit the 2 proposed models, a uni dimensional model and a 4-dimension model. However, the scale did show crit erion-related validity. Conclusions: Results of the present study converge with those obtained on t he original widely used English version. Therefore, we suggest that clinici ans use the questionnaire by referring to each item separately and by consi dering such patient characteristics as age, sex, and diagnosis. We also sug gest that researchers wishing to evaluate health and social functioning of persons with serious mental disorders use the total score. Caution is, howe ver, warranted when interpreting the total score for a French-speaking popu lation, because the factorial solution 1-dimension model did not prove to b e satisfactory.