Abstract
BackgroundA person’s participation is acknowledged as an important outcome of the rehabilitation process. The Participation Scale (P-Scale) is an instrument that was designed to assess the participation of individuals with a health condition or disability. The scale was developed in an effort to better describe the participation of people living in middle-income and low-income countries. The aim of this study was to use Rasch analysis to examine whether the Participation Scale is suitable to assess the perceived ability to take part in participation situations by patients with diverse levels of function.MethodsThe sample was comprised by 302 patients from a public rehabilitation services network. Participants had orthopaedic or neurological health conditions, were at least 18 years old, and completed the Participation Scale. Rasch analysis was conducted using the Winsteps software.ResultsThe mean age of all participants was 45.5 years (standard deviation = 14.4), 52% were male, 86% had orthopaedic conditions, and 52% had chronic symptoms. Rasch analysis was performed using a dichotomous rating scale, and only one item showed misfit. Dimensionality analysis supported the existence of only one Rasch dimension. The person separation index was 1.51, and the item separation index was 6.38. Items N2 and N14 showed Differential Item Functioning between men and women. Items N6 and N12 showed Differential Item Functioning between acute and chronic conditions. The item difficulty range was −1.78 to 2.09 logits, while the sample ability range was −2.41 to 4.61 logits.ConclusionsThe P-Scale was found to be useful as a screening tool for participation problems reported by patients in a rehabilitation context, despite some issues that should be addressed to further improve the scale.
Highlights
A person’s participation is acknowledged as an important outcome of the rehabilitation process
In an effort to better describe the participation of people living in middle-income and low-income countries, van Brakel et al (2006) proposed the Participation Scale (P-Scale) – an instrument that was designed to assess the participation of individuals with a health condition or disability, especially conditions associated with stigma and discrimination [10]
More than half of the sample reported having participation problems on the items related to paid work: a problem on item N2 – Work as hard as your peers do was reported by 52% of the participants, and a problem on item N1 – Equal opportunity as your peers to find a job was reported by 51% of the sample
Summary
A person’s participation is acknowledged as an important outcome of the rehabilitation process. In an effort to better describe the participation of people living in middle-income and low-income countries, van Brakel et al (2006) proposed the Participation Scale (P-Scale) – an instrument that was designed to assess the participation of individuals with a health condition or disability, especially conditions associated with stigma and discrimination [10]. An innovative characteristic of the scale is that the individuals are asked to compare themselves with a real or hypothetical “peer” – that is, someone who is similar to them in all respects, except for illness or disability This comparison was proposed to allow the representation of the roles and expectations for participation in different social and cultural contexts [10]. These special features indicate that the P-scale might be useful to assess clients’ participation restrictions in diverse life situations
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
