Occupational therapists' and patients' perceptions of ABILHAND, a new assessment tool for measuring manual ability

• The aim of this study was to explore and describe how occupational therapists (OTs) and patients perceived ABILHAND, a new assessment tool for measuring manual ability, in order to evaluate it in terms of content validity and clinical utility in stroke rehabilitation in Sweden. Three main steps were followed to achieve the study goal. First, ABILHAND was translated, and second OTs used ABILHAND with patients admitted for occupational therapy intervention. Finally, in the third step, which aimed to evaluate the content validity and clinical utility of ABILHAND, focus-group interviews were used as a qualitative method of research. The results indicate that ABILHAND might benefit from adjustments to improve content validity. The results also show that standardization for clinical administration is necessary, the production of a manual is essential and the development of a user-friendly computer program for processing data is desirable. An additional finding in this study is an insight into the clinical reasoning of the OTs, which resulted in two conclusions. First, OTs need to discuss and learn more about central concepts in occupational therapy, and second they need to learn more about standardized assessment and how tests are developed and used.

Subject headings

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Arbetsterapi (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Occupational Therapy (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Disability evaluation

Focus-group interview

Outcome measure

Rehabilitation

Stroke

Upper limb

adult

aged

article

clinical article

computer program

controlled study

device

diagnostic test

diagnostic value

female

functional assessment

hospital admission

hospital patient

human

human computer interaction

information processing

interview

language

male

measurement

occupational therapist

occupational therapy

perception

physical capacity

qualitative analysis

staff training

standardization

Sweden

validation process

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)