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Authors: Lea Decker, Dominik Röding (Hannover Medical School), Isabell von Holt, Ulla Walter (Hannover Medical School)
Background: In whole-school approaches to prevention and health promotion (PHP), system changes such as an increase in collaboration for prevention are intended short-term outcomes. These changes are crucial steps toward achieving positive long-term outcomes for students. To date, only a few validated instruments in the German language exist to measure such system changes. We present an extended version of one such instrument and its psychometric properties.
Methods: Our instrument is an adapted version of an instrument that measures system changes in communities. It uses a multiple key informant interview approach and comprises the following constructs: adoption of a science-based prevention strategy (index based on 21 items), inter-sectoral collaboration for PHP (10 items), integrated strategy for PHP (10 items), support for prevention (4 items), and social norms (8 items). Data were collected as part of a quasi-experimental study that evaluates Weitblick, a prevention support system for schools in Germany. We interviewed 108 school key informants from 20 schools since March 2024. We conducted reliability and correlation analyses, and calculated intra-class correlation coefficient to assess school-level variation.
Results: Preliminary findings indicate acceptable to good internal consistency (α= .732 to .831). At the individual level, integrated strategy correlates significantly with inter-sectoral collaboration (r= .292) and support for prevention (r= .473). On the school level, it correlates significantly with support for prevention (r= .652) and the adoption of a science-based prevention strategy (r= .668). The following proportion of variance is explained by school-level differences: adoption of a science-based prevention strategy 94.8%, inter-sectoral collaboration 58%, integrated strategy 34.8%, support for prevention 40.2%, social norms 41%.
Conclusion: The results indicate that the instrument enables valid measurements of system change outcomes in the German context. Limitations are being discussed, and further analyses of these outcomes will follow (e.g., confirmatory factor analyses).
| Conflict of interest | we declare no conflict of interest |
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