Abstract
The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) is a classification of health and health-related issues, aimed at describing and measuring health and disability at both individual and population levels. Here we discuss a preliminary qualitative and quantitative analysis of the relationships used in the Activities and Participation component of ICF, and a preliminary mapping to SUMO (Suggested Upper Merged Ontology) concepts. The aim of the analysis is to identify potential logical problems within this component of ICF, and to understand whether activities and participation might be defined more formally than in the current version of ICF. In the relationship analysis, we used four predicates among those available in SUMO for processes (Patient, Instrument, Agent, and subProcess). While at the top level subsumption was used in most cases (90%), at the lower levels the percentage of other relationships rose to 41%. Chapters were heterogeneous in the relationships used and some of the leaves of the tree seemed to represent properties or parts of the parent concept rather than subclasses. Mapping of ICF to SUMO proved partially feasible, with the activity concepts being mapped mostly (but not totally) under the IntentionalProcess concept in SUMO. On the other hand, the participation concept has not been mapped to any upper level concept. Our analysis of the relationships within ICF revealed issues related to confusion between classes and their properties, incorrect classifications, and overemphasis on subsumption, confirming what already observed by other researchers. However, it also suggested some properties for Activities that could be included in a more formal model: number of agents involved, the instrument used to carry out the activity, the object of the activity, complexity of the task, and an enumeration of relevant subtasks.
Highlights
The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) is a classification of health and health-related issues, aimed at describing and measuring health and disability at both individual and population levels
We present an ontology-based exploration of the relationships and concepts used in the Activities and Participation component of ICF, by mapping it to an upper ontology (SUMO: Suggested Upper Merged Ontology [8])
Our analysis of the relationships within ICF identified some issues, confirming what already observed by Kumar and Smith on a different component [7], and in particular problems related to confusion between classes and their properties, incorrect classifications, and overemphasis on subsumption
Summary
The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) is a classification of health and health-related issues, aimed at describing and measuring health and disability at both individual and population levels. We discuss a preliminary qualitative and quantitative analysis of the relationships used in the Activities and Participation component of ICF, and a preliminary mapping to SUMO (Suggested Upper Merged Ontology) concepts. We can distinguish between upper (or toplevel) and domain ontologies The former describe very general concepts like space, time, matter, object, event, action, etc., which are independent of a particular problem or domain. The latter describe the vocabulary related to a generic domain or a generic task or activity, by specializing the terms of an upper ontology
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