Validation of content and structure of the Return-to-work assessment for post-stroke survivors.
Peter O Ibikunle, Anthea Rhoda, Mario R Smith and 1 others
PMID 36340938WHAT IT FOUND
Experts and post-stroke survivors reached 100% agreement on a new scale to assess return-to-work readiness.
The tool covers personal, work, and contextual factors, including communication and employer attitudes, providing a structured way to evaluate barriers and facilitators for employment.
Key findings
01A three-round Delphi survey with 20 participants achieved 100% consensus on the items, domains, and subdomains of the Return-to-work assessment scale.
02The validated scale assesses return-to-work through three domains: Personal (including cognition and communication), Work (including reasonable accommodation), and Contextual factors.
03The instrument was designed to address the lack of disease-specific outcome measures for return-to-work in post-stroke survivors, moving beyond generic functional scales.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study did not test the psychometric properties (reliability or validity) of the scale in this phase; it only established content validity. The participant pool was small (n=20) and limited to South Africa and Nigeria, which may affect generalizability to other cultural or economic contexts. Contextual factors excluded country and company policies or laws, limiting the scope of environmental barriers assessed.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume this scale is clinically proven to predict actual return-to-work outcomes. This study only established that experts agreed the items were relevant; it did not test whether using the scale reliably predicts who will or will not return to work.