Measurement of activities and participation for children with cerebral palsy: A systematic review

Abstract

Effective assessment of outcomes in children with chronic health conditions is important to monitor their progress, evaluate interventions, and guide health policy. There is a limitation of the measures currently available for evaluating activities and participation in children with cerebral palsy according to Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health – Children & Youth Version (ICF-CY). The aim: On the ground of an available scientific literature, to identify and to analyze measures of activities and participation for paediatric patients with cerebral palsy. Materials and methods: A systematic search was performed in data basis EBSCO (Medline), Science Direct and Cochrane Library. On the ground of the previously conducted scientific research work publications, the identified evaluative measures were reviewed for their characteristics, psychometric properties of reliability and/or validity and analyzed for their utility. Their accordance to the activities and participation domains of the ICF-CY was identified and the practical use of the evaluative measures was proposed. Results and conclusion: 28 measures were identified; 15 were systematically reviewed and analyzed. Measures that assess only activities are found to be seven, only participation – two, and both activities and participation are assessed by six measures. When relating the measures to the domains of ICF-CY, the most appropriate for measuring activities is ASKp, participation – Life-H for Children, whereas for activities and participation – PEDI and COPM. The identified and analyzed measures reflect different activities and participation domains of ICF-CY; therefore, the choice and the practical use of the certain measure depend on the aim of the assessment.