Development and implementation of a music/activity therapy intake assessment for psychiatric patients. Part I:...

The stimulus for the Music/Activity Therapy Intake Assessment was a recent publication by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals requiring for activity services, "assessment of the patient's needs, interests, life experiences, capacities, and deficiencies" (1981, p. 126). The Assessment was written in the spring of 1982 and contains four sections: Activity Preference, Organizational involvement, Attitude Survey, and Post-Interview Observations. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the Attitude Survey. The Attitude Survey was administered to 214 university students enrolled in three areas of study: human science, performance, and liberal arts. Results show that each of the three scales in the Survey is internally consistent (.63 to .74), that each scale measures a single large dimension, and that two of the three scales significantly discriminate between groups of students (p less than .05). The authors conclude that the Attitude Survey possesses adequate psychometric properties to justify its continued use as part of the Music/Activity Intake Assessment.