AUTHOR=Gerger Heike , Buergler Sarah , Sezer Dilan , Grethler Marc , Gaab Jens , Locher Cosima 

TITLE=The Healing Encounters and Attitudes Lists (HEAL): Psychometric Properties of a German Version (HEAL-D) in Comparison With the Original HEAL

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychiatry

VOLUME=10

YEAR=2020

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00897

DOI=10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00897

ISSN=1664-0640

ABSTRACT=<p><bold>Introduction:</bold> Over the last years, the interest in understanding health improvements that occur due to non-specific treatment effects, rather than in response to the specific active treatment ingredients, increased. Nevertheless, investigations on patients’ idiosyncratic perspectives on the non-specific aspects of the healing encounter or of the treatment itself that contribute to placebo effects are still rare. The <italic>Healing Encounters and Attitudes Lists</italic> (HEAL) offer a unique and parsimonious set of instruments to measure patients’ views on a variety of non-specific aspects of the caring encounter. The HEAL items can be administered as computerized adaptive tests or short forms that assess the <italic>patient-provider connection</italic>, the <italic>healthcare environment</italic>, <italic>treatment expectancy</italic>, <italic>positive outlook</italic>, <italic>spirituality</italic>, as well as <italic>attitudes towards complementary and alternative medicine</italic>. So far, no German version of the HEAL exists.</p><p><bold>Methods:</bold> The original 168 HEAL items were translated into German (HEAL-D) applying a translation-back-translation procedure. We examined the psychometric properties of HEAL-D in a sample of 165 participants who reported at least one healthcare visit during the last year.</p><p><bold>Results:</bold> The German short forms of HEAL (HEAL-D-SF) showed good internal consistency and test-retest reliability. The factor structure observed in the English original items showed low to moderate model fit in our sample.</p><p><bold>Discussion:</bold> The development of a German version of HEAL in addition to the original English items offers new possibilities for investigating patients’ idiosyncratic perspectives on the non-specific aspects of treatments across language borders. We will close with presenting possible clinical application as well as promising and relevant future research directions using HEAL-D-SF, including for instance large-scale, cross-national investigations.</p>