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Development of the Music Therapy Assessment Tool for Advanced Huntington's Disease: A Pilot Validation Study
Julian O'Kelly1, Rebeka Bodak2
1Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability/Queen Mary University, London Center for Music in the Brain, Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University & The Royal Academy of Music Aarhus/Aalborg, Denmark julian.okelly@elft.nhs.uk.
Background:
Case studies of people with Huntington's disease (HD) report that music therapy provides a range of benefits that may improve quality of life; however, no robust music therapy assessment tools exist for this population.
Objective:
Develop and conduct preliminary psychometric testing of a music therapy assessment tool for patients with advanced HD.
Methods:
First, we established content and face validity of the Music Therapy Assessment Tool for Advanced HD (MATA-HD) through focus groups and field testing. Second, we examined psychometric properties of the resulting MATA-HD in terms of its construct validity, internal consistency, and inter-rater and intra-rater reliability over 10 group music therapy sessions with 19 patients.
Results:
The resulting MATA-HD included a total of 15 items across six subscales (Arousal/Attention, Physical Presentation, Communication, Musical, Cognition, and Psychological/Behavioral). We found good construct validity (r ≥ 0.7) for Mood, Communication Level, Communication Effectiveness, Choice, Social Behavior, Arousal, and Attention items. Cronbach's α of 0.825 indicated good internal consistency across 11 items with a common focus of engagement in therapy. The inter-rater reliability (IRR) Intra-Class Coefficient (ICC) scores averaged 0.65, and a mean intra-rater ICC reliability of 0.68 was obtained. Further training and retesting provided a mean of IRR ICC of 0.7.
Conclusion:
Preliminary data indicate that the MATA-HD is a promising tool for measuring patient responses to music therapy interventions across psychological, physical, social, and communication domains of functioning in patients with advanced HD.
