Assessing Participation in Adolescents With Cerebral Palsy: Comparison of Life-Habits and USER-Participation.
Gerjanne J van Alphen, Marjolijn Ketelaar, Jeanine M Voorman and 2 others
PMID 36545524WHAT IT FOUND
The Life-H and USER-Participation agree on how much adolescents with cerebral palsy do, but not on how satisfied they are.
Use the USER-Participation for a quick overall picture and the Life-H when you need to find specific daily restrictions or sources of dissatisfaction.
Key findings
01The two instruments' accomplishment and restriction scales correlated strongly, but their satisfaction scales correlated much more weakly.
02The Life-H is more detailed and takes longer, while the USER-Participation is shorter and suited to screening.
03Scores were high across the board, likely because most participants could walk well, so the study says little about adolescents with more severe restrictions.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
Only 45 adolescents took part, and five more were dropped because they found the questionnaires too hard, so the results rest on a small and possibly able group. Most participants could walk well, and scores were high across the board, so the study tells you little about how these tools behave for adolescents with severe physical disability. The comparison is limited to these two instruments and to cerebral palsy, so it does not say how they perform for other conditions.
Declared interests
The paper does not report a funding source or any competing interests.
The easy way to misread this
Do not treat the strong correlation between the accomplishment and restriction scales as proof the two tools are interchangeable. The satisfaction scales agreed much less, and the Life-H covers domains such as responsibilities and education that the USER-Participation does not, so switching tools will change what you can say about a young person's life.