Psychometric properties of the Assessment of Positive Occupation 15 for individuals with physical illness.
Takuya Noguchi, Makoto Kyougoku
PMID 39713212WHAT IT FOUND
The APO-15 reliably identifies limitations in well-being-enhancing occupations for adults with physical illness, mostly older adults.
Scores strongly correlate with happiness but weakly with psychological distress. The test's structure fits the sample only partially, so interpret individual factors with caution.
Key findings
01The APO-15 showed high internal consistency reliability in this population.
02APO-15 scores correlated moderately with happiness but showed only a very weak negative correlation with psychological distress.
03The proposed four-factor structure of the APO-15 received only partial support in this sample.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The sample was predominantly older adults (87.77% aged ≥65 years), so the findings may not generalize well to younger adults with physical illness. The structural validity of the APO-15 was only partially supported, with the RMSEA value at the upper limit of acceptable fit. The concurrent validity with psychological distress (K6) was very weak, suggesting the APO-15 may not be a useful proxy for measuring distress in this population. Happiness was measured using a single-item scale, which may not fully capture the construct. The study was conducted in Japan using the Japanese version of the APO-15, which may affect generalizability to other linguistic and cultural contexts.
Declared interests
No specific funding or conflict of interest declarations were provided in the text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume the APO-15 accurately measures psychological distress or that its four subscales are distinct in this population. The correlation with distress was very weak, and the four-factor structure received only partial support, so interpret the total score with more confidence than the individual subscale scores.