[Testing the Psychometric Properties of the Helping Alliance Questionnaire (HAQ) in Different Health Care Settings]

Introduction The Helping Alliance Questionnaire developed by Luborsky was psychometricly examined for the first time and translated into German by Bassler et al. in the mid-1990s. It consists of 11 Items, which are summarized to the scales "relation to the therapist" and "satisfaction with therapeutic outcome". HAQ is now one of the most used instruments to measure therapeutic alliance. The goal of this study was to test the psychometric properties based on three large patient samples in different treatment settings. Material and methods Analyses were conducted based on 2 samples of patients in inpatient psychosomatic/psychotherapeutic rehabilitation (n=655, n=2494) and one sample in outpatient psychotherapy (n=1477). Exploratory factor analyses and for verification confirmatory factor analyses were applied. Furthermore reliability and validity analysis were conducted. Results The 2-factorial structure found in literature was replicated with an increasing stability at the end of treatment. Item 2 and 3 had inconsistent factor loadings at different points of measurement and study. Reliability and validity indices were satisfying to good. The fit of the model, on the other hand, was less satisfying and suggests a solution without Item 2 and 3. For reasons of content as well as for reasons of dissemination, it is pleaded for the maintenance of the existing item assignments in the HAQ for the present.