Insiel S.P.A., Udine, Italy.
Conegliano-Pieve di Soligo Research Centre, IRCCS "E. Medea" Scientific Institute, Pieve Di Soligo, Italy.
BMC Med Inform Decis Mak. 2021 Dec 29;21(1):367. doi: 10.1186/s12911-021-01729-x.
The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) is a classification of health and health-related states developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) to provide a standard and unified language to be used as a reference model for the description of health and health-related states. The concept of functioning on which ICF is based is that of a "dynamic interaction between a person's health condition, environmental factors and personal factors". This overall model has been translated into a classification covering all the main components of functioning. However, the practical use of ICF has highlighted some formal problems, mainly concerning conceptual clarity and ontological coherence.
In the present work, we propose an initial ontological formalization of ICF beyond its current status, focusing specifically on the interaction between activities and participation and environmental factors. The formalization has been based on ontology engineering methods to drive goal and scope definition, knowledge acquisition, selection of an upper ontology for mapping, conceptual model definition and evaluation, and finally representation using the Ontology Web Language (OWL).
A conceptual model has been defined in a graphical language that included 202 entities, when possible mapped to the SUMO upper ontology. The conceptual model has been validated against 60 case studies from the literature, plus 6 ad-hoc case studies. The model has been then represented using OWL.
This formalization might provide the basis for a revision of the ICF classification in line with current efforts made by WHO on the International Classification of Diseases and on the International Classification of Health Interventions.
《国际功能、残疾和健康分类》（ICF）是世界卫生组织（WHO）开发的一种健康和健康相关状态分类，旨在提供一种标准和统一的语言，作为描述健康和健康相关状态的参考模型。ICF 所基于的功能概念是“人的健康状况、环境因素和个人因素之间的动态相互作用”。这一总体模型已被转化为涵盖所有功能主要组成部分的分类。然而，ICF 的实际应用凸显了一些形式上的问题，主要涉及概念的清晰性和本体论的一致性。
在本工作中，我们提出了 ICF 的初步本体论形式化，超越了其当前的状态，特别关注活动和参与以及环境因素之间的相互作用。形式化是基于本体工程方法来驱动目标和范围定义、知识获取、用于映射的上层本体选择、概念模型定义和评估，以及最终使用 Web 本体语言（OWL）表示。
定义了一个用图形语言表示的概念模型，其中包括 202 个实体，在可能的情况下映射到 SUMO 上层本体。该概念模型已针对文献中的 60 个案例研究以及 6 个特设案例研究进行了验证。然后使用 OWL 表示模型。
这种形式化可能为 ICF 分类的修订提供基础，以符合世卫组织在《国际疾病分类》和《国际健康干预分类》方面所做的当前努力。
