Canadian Occupational Performance Measure Article Summary

Posted on: February 23, 2019 | By: hennis | Filed under: Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COMP)

Willis C, Nyquist A, Jahnsen R, Elliott C, Ullenhag A. Enabling physical activity participation for children and youth with disabilities following a goal-directed, family-centred intervention. Research in Developmental Disabilities. 2018;77:30-39. doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2018.03.010.

 

Although physical activity is important in the pediatric population, children with disabilities are less active than their peers. Several factors have been attributed to this lack of physical activity including environment and accessibility as well as education or training of the family and others working with the child with a disability. The Canadian Occupational Performance Measure and Goal Attainment Scaling are outcome measures that can be used when trying to help this population become more active.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess how participation changed in this population immediately after the intervention and 12 weeks after the intervention. The researchers hypothesized that both participation and satisfaction in physical activity would increase.
Study Population: 92 children completed this study. The participants were between the ages of 5 and 17 years and were receiving intervention at Beitostolen Healthsports Center (BHC).

Methods: This study looked at the achievement of physical activity goals as well as satisfaction and performance of participation. They used a pre-test post-test cohort design to see if any changes occurred. Assessments were made at baseline, after the intervention, and at the follow-up.

Outcome Measures: This study used the Canadian Occupation Performance Measure (COPM) and the Goal Attainment Scale. These measures looked at the subject’s priorities as well as the achievement of their goals.
Intervention: Children participated in activities to reach their personal goals, but also learned how to participate in other activities. Parents were educated on ways to adapt activities for their child. The length of stay at the BHC Center was 19 days.

Results: There was a significant difference seen in the COPM for both the parent and child ratings. On the GAS, 57% of children made progress toward their goals and 32% achieved either what was expected of them or more than was expected of them. The children who did not reach their goals did not have a significantly different level of satisfaction or performance in the COPM compared to the participants who achieved their goals. This study seems to suggest that creating interventions that center around the family and children’s goals could improve participation in physical activity, as well as educating families on how to adapt activities for their child with disabilities.

Strengths/Limitations: A limitation of this study would be the lack of a control group to compare the outcomes to. A strength of this study would be the outcome measures that were used. The authors stated that using these outcome measures allowed for equal comparison between individuals even if the goals or disabilities were varied. This paired with the broad inclusion criteria may help with generalizability to the public as they did not exclude diagnoses which allowed different disabilities to be studied. Another strength is that this was evaluating a program that was already established at the BHC.

Overall Conclusion: Involving and educating the family as well as including goals that are important to the family or child seem to improve the participation in physical activity. This is important for clinicians to keep in mind when setting goals and interventions because it could help adherence as well as the progression toward goals. This article seems to be another great source to support patient-centered care and keeping the family and patients involved in all aspects of their interventions.

 

One response to “Canadian Occupational Performance Measure Article Summary”

  1. Paula A. DiBiasio says:

    Thanks for the help HC, going to use this one in class!

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