[The Osnabruck Work Capabilities Profile (O-AFP) for persons with psychiatric illness: concept, development, and...

The goal of this paper is presentation of an inventory for the assessment of basic capabilities underlying work and occupational behaviour of psychiatric patients in the course of their treatment and rehabilitation. The "Osnabruck Work Capabilities Profile" (O-AFP) is an instrument filled in by staff, which consists of three scales comprising ten items each, measuring "Learning Ability", "Social Communication Ability" and "Adaptation". In the study presented, these scales were confirmed by factor analyses of data from 194 schizophrenic patients. Test analyses yielded good item and scale characteristics. The only exception to this are elevated item difficulty scores of the third scale (adaptation). This was attributed to specific effects of selecting the sample of patients. Furthermore, low or insignificant correlations with the patients' symptom scores indicate the discriminant validity of the scales. It is concluded that the O-AFP is well suited for application with different forms of occupational therapy.