Comparing the content of instruments assessing environmental factors using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health

Content validity of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health core set for knee dysfunction: a Delphi study

OBJECTIVE

To assess the content validity of the preliminary core set for knee dysfunction based on the opinion of experts.

DESIGN

A panel of 180 experts in knee disorders or on the use of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health for musculoskeletal conditions was invited for this Delphi study. The experts gave their opinion on whether to include the categories of the preliminary core set for knee dysfunction in a more comprehensive core set, using a six-item Likert scale. Kappa coefficient was used to analyze the agreement between the experts, and a consensus of 75% among responses was considered acceptable.

RESULTS

Nineteen experts participated in all rounds. Of the 24 categories from the preliminary core set for knee dysfunction, 15 remained in the comprehensive core set and one category was further detailed into three new categories. Seven new categories were included. Thus, the comprehensive core set for knee dysfunction was composed of 25 categories with an agreement of 81.5% among responses and a Kappa value of 0.63.

CONCLUSION

After validation by experts, the comprehensive core set for knee dysfunction was composed of 25 categories that can be used to assess the functioning of patients with knee dysfunction.

A Chinese version of the Measure of Stroke Environment (MOSE): psychometric evaluation in stroke survivors

PURPOSE

To translate the MOSE from English to Chinese and investigate the psychometric properties of the Chinese-translated version of the Measure of Stroke Environment (MOSE).

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The MOSE was translated into Chinese using a cultural adaptation process. To validate this Chinese version, 311 stroke survivors were recruited to complete the questionnaire. The psychometric properties of the MOSE were evaluated by determining item analysis, test-retest reliability, internal consistency, content validity, construct validity, and floor/ceiling effects, respectively.

RESULTS

The MOSE was translated without any major difficulties. Regarding psychometric performances, a moderate level of correlation between the items and the domains (r > 0.4), and the significant differences in items between the high group and the low group were tested by independent sample t-tests (p < 0.05). The test-retest reliability was excellent (Intraclass Coefficient Correlation = 0.938). Very high internal consistency was also observed (Cronbach's α = 0.945, split-half reliability = 0.778). An acceptable I-CVI ranged from 0.714 to 1.000 and a high S-CVI of 0.973. Correlations with the subscales of the WHODAS 2.0 were significant in similar domains reflecting good convergent validity. No floor or ceiling effects were observed.

CONCLUSION

This study provides psychometric evidence supporting the use of the Chinese version of the MOSE among stroke survivors.IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATIONThe Measure of Stroke Environment was translated into Chinese through a rigorous cultural adaptation process.MOSE-C is now a reliable and valid tool for Chinese-speaking survivors who have suffered from a stroke.It is necessary to assess the perceived environmental barriers of stroke survivors and develop targeted intervention programs in China.

Instrumentos da prática clínica com versão em português e a abrangência de seus conteúdos usando a CIF como referência: uma revisão sistemática

RESUMO A prática clínica tem sido subsidiada por instrumentos que permitem acessar e registrar informações de funcionalidade e saúde dos indivíduos. Uma forma de conhecer qual conteúdo da Classificação Internacional de Funcionalidade, Incapacidade e Saúde (CIF) os instrumentos contemplam é usá-la como referência para auxiliar o profissional na escolha do mais adequado para acessar informações biopsicossociais. O objetivo foi identificar instrumentos da prática clínica em saúde que tiveram seu conteúdo ligado com a CIF e a existência de versão na língua portuguesa deles. Para tanto foi realizada uma revisão sistemática nas bases de dados SciELO Brasil, Lilacs e PubMed com os descritores “CIF”, “questionário” e “regra de ligação” em português e inglês. Três pesquisadores independentes realizaram a seleção, e o nível de concordância foi obtido pelo coeficiente Kappa. Os critérios de elegibilidade foram: estudos primários de ligação de conteúdo de questionários, escalas, índices e checklists com a CIF publicados após 2001 em língua portuguesa ou inglesa. Foram incluídos 61 artigos, sendo 19 de origem brasileira. Dos 250 instrumentos ligados à CIF, 158 (63,2%) apresentaram versão em português sendo que dos 37 que mais se repetiram nos estudos, dois não apresentam essa versão. O coeficiente Kappa mostrou concordância entre moderada e boa (p<0,001). Este estudo apresentou um panorama da ligação de conteúdo de instrumentos da prática clínica à CIF identificando quais têm versão em língua portuguesa, o que contribuirá para o potencial fortalecimento da abordagem biopsicossocial dos profissionais de saúde.

Measuring Environmental Factors: Unique and Overlapping International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health Coverage of 5 Instruments

OBJECTIVES

To describe the unique and overlapping content of the newly developed Environmental Factors Item Banks (EFIB) and 7 legacy environmental factor instruments, and to evaluate the EFIB's construct validity by examining associations with legacy instruments.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional, observational cohort.

SETTING

Community.

PARTICIPANTS

A sample of community-dwelling adults with stroke, spinal cord injury, and traumatic brain injury (N=568).

INTERVENTIONS

None.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

EFIB covering domains of the built and natural environment; systems, services, and policies; social environment; and access to information and technology; the Craig Hospital Inventory of Environmental Factors (CHIEF) short form; the Facilitators and Barriers Survey/Mobility (FABS/M) short form; the Home and Community Environment Instrument (HACE); the Measure of the Quality of the Environment (MQE) short form; and 3 of the Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System's (PROMIS) Quality of Social Support measures.

RESULTS

The EFIB and legacy instruments assess most of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) environmental factors chapters, including chapter 1 (products and technology; 75 items corresponding to 11 codes), chapter 2 (natural environment and human-made changes; 31 items corresponding to 7 codes), chapter 3 (support and relationships; 74 items corresponding to 7 codes), chapter 4 (attitudes; 83 items corresponding to 8 codes), and chapter 5 (services, systems, and policies; 72 items corresponding to 16 codes). Construct validity is provided by moderate correlations between EFIB measures and the CHIEF, MQE barriers, HACE technology mobility, FABS/M community built features, and PROMIS item banks and by small correlations with other legacy instruments. Only 5 of the 66 legacy instrument correlation coefficients are moderate, suggesting they measure unique aspects of the environment, whereas all intra-EFIB correlations were at least moderate.

CONCLUSIONS

The EFIB measures provide a brief and focused assessment of ICF environmental factor chapters. The pattern of correlations with legacy instruments provides initial evidence of construct validity.

Using the ICF's environmental factors framework to develop an item bank measuring built and natural environmental features affecting persons with disabilities

OBJECTIVES

To develop a measure of natural environment and human-made change features (Chapter 2 of the international classification of functioning, disability, and health) and evaluate the influence of perceived barriers on health-related quality of life.

METHODS

A sample of 570 adults with stroke, spinal cord injury, and traumatic brain injury residing in community settings reported their functioning in home, outdoor, and community settings (mean age = 47.0 years, SD = 16.1). They rated 18 items with a 5-point rating scale to describe the influence of barriers to moving around, seeing objects, hearing sounds, hearing conversations, feeling safe, and regulating temperature and indicated whether any difficulties were due to environmental features. We used Rasch analysis to identify misfitting items and evaluate differential item functioning (DIF) across impairment groups. We computed correlations between barriers and patient-reported outcomes measurement information system (PROMIS) social domain measures and community participation indicators (CPI) measures.

RESULTS

The 18 items demonstrated person reliability of .70, discriminating nearly three levels of barriers. All items fit the Rasch model; impairment-related DIF was negligible. Ceiling effects were negligible, but 25 % of the respondents were at the floor, indicating that they did not experience barriers that they attributed to the built and natural environment. As anticipated, barriers correlated moderately with PROMIS and CPI variables, suggesting that although this new item bank measures a construct that is related to participation and health-related quality of life, it also captures something unique. Known-groups validity was supported by wheelchair users reporting a higher level of barriers than did ambulatory respondents.

CONCLUSIONS

Preliminary evidence supports the reliability and validity of this new measure of barriers to the built and natural environment. This measure allows investigators and clinicians to measure perceptions of the natural environment and human-made changes, providing information that can guide interventions to reduce barriers. Moderate relationships between barriers and PROMIS and CPI variables provide support for the measurement and theory of environmental influences on social health and participation.

Incorporating environmental factors in gait assessments of persons following amputation

Abstract Introduction: Environmental factors have also been recognized to be a component of a multidimensional gait assessment of people living with disabilities, like persons following an amputation. Objective: To investigated whether the environmental factors outlined by the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) are considered when evaluating gait following lower limb amputations. Materials and methods: A literature search of the PubMed, EMBASE, CINAHL, and SPORTDiscus databases was performed. The keywords "amputation" and "gait" were combined with the keywords "barriers", "facilitators", and "environmental factors". Searches were performed without language restrictions. All articles containing data about environmental influences on gait functionality after lower limb amputations published during or after 2002, were included. Manuscripts that did not study adults and literature reviews were excluded. Two researchers identified potentially eligible articles and the methods used to assess gait. To make comparisons between scales, the 2 researchers selected the categories from the ICF chapter on environmental factors. Results: Fourteen studies were obtained from the search. Seven studies were duplicates and 4 were excluded. The remaining 3 articles were evaluated. We identified a total of 74 possibilities for categorization according to the ICF environmental factors, but only 7 ICF categories (9.45%) were considered in the studies analyzed. Conclusions: The influence of environmental factors is frequently not considered in the evaluation of gait following a lower limb amputation. Thorough evaluation of gait after lower limb amputation should reflect the complex nature of gait changes, including environmental factors.

Theoretical foundations for the measurement of environmental factors and their impact on participation among people with disabilities

The ascendance of the World Health Organization's International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Heath (ICF) as the global standard for describing and characterizing aspects of disability has refocused attention on the role that environmental factors (EFs) have on the health and participation of people with disabilities, both as individuals and as a group. There has been a rise in the development of instruments designed to measure EFs alone and in relation to participation. Some instrument developers have used the ICF as a theoretical base for instrument development and to substantiate content validity claims. We contend that this is a misapplication of the ICF. There is a need to step back and reexamine the role that environmental theories can play in developing a conceptually driven approach to measuring the interaction between EFs and participation. For this review, we draw on the fields of social, community, and developmental psychology; disability studies; gerontology; public health; and rehabilitation. We discuss different approaches to the measurement of EFs. We suggest that given the complex nature of EFs and their influence on participation, there is a need for a fresh approach to EF measurement. The thoughtful application of theories and the use of advanced psychometric, measurement, and e-technologies and data visualization methods may enable researchers and clinicians to better quantify, document, and communicate the dynamic interrelationship between EFs and participation and health outcomes for people with disabilities at the individual, group, and population levels.

Information persistence services designed to support home care

Background

Due to the challenges faced by health and social care systems, in particular those related to actual demographic trends, home care emerges as a potentially cost-effective solution to answer the needs of citizens, and to allow the reallocation of resources to alternatives to hospitalization or institutionalization.

Objective

Home care services require cooperation between different actors, including health and social caregivers, care receivers, and their informal caregivers (eg, relatives or friends), across time, space, and organizational boundaries. Therefore, it is foreseeable that eHealth services can contribute to their improvement. The aim of this study is to evaluate information persistence services based on the Reference Information Model (RIM) of the Health Level Seven (HL7) version 3 to support formal caregivers, both health and social care providers, and informal caregivers in the context of home care services.

Methods

A pilot study was set up involving two Portuguese institutions that provide home care services for the elderly. Defining of information requirements was performed according to a comprehensive process. This included a review of the literature, observations of work activities, interviews with caregivers, care receivers and their relatives, analysis of paper documentation related to care receivers’ histories, health conditions and care plans, and brainstorming groups involving specialized professionals. Following this, information objects were implemented and validated.

Results

The methodological approach, as well as the information persistence services, proved to be robust and adequate to specify, implement, and validate different types of information objects related to home care services for the elderly. This study also reinforces the application of the RIM of the HL7 version 3 beyond the strict scope of health care, allowing the persistence of not only health care information, but also information related to social assistance activities.

Conclusions

This study contributes to the ongoing efforts related to the development of eHealth applications to improve the cooperation among formal health care and social caregivers, as well as care receivers and their informal caregivers.

Environmental factors item development for persons with stroke, traumatic brain injury, and spinal cord injury

OBJECTIVES

To describe methods used in operationalizing environmental factors; to describe the results of a research project to develop measures of environmental factors that affect participation; and to define an initial item set of facilitators and barriers to participation after stroke, traumatic brain injury, and spinal cord injury.

DESIGN

Instrument development included an extensive literature review, item classification and selection, item writing, and cognitive testing following the approach of the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System.

SETTING

Community.

PARTICIPANTS

Content area and outcome measurement experts (n=10) contributed to instrument development; individuals (n=200) with the target conditions participated in focus groups and in cognitive testing (n=15).

INTERVENTIONS

None.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Environmental factor items were categorized in 6 domains: assistive technology; built and natural environment; social environment; services, systems, and policies; access to information and technology; and economic quality of life.

RESULTS

We binned 2273 items across the 6 domains, winnowed this pool to 291 items for cognitive testing, and recommended 274 items for pilot data collection.

CONCLUSIONS

Five of the 6 domains correspond closely to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health taxonomy of environmental factors; the sixth domain, economic quality of life, reflects an important construct that reflects financial resources that affect participation. Testing with a new and larger sample is underway to evaluate reliability, validity, and sensitivity.