Assessing Participation in Adolescents With Cerebral Palsy: Comparison of Life-Habits and USER-Participation

Objective: To explore and compare the contents and scores of the Assessment of Life Habits (Life-H) with the Utrecht Scale for Evaluation of Rehabilitation-Participation (USER -Participation) in adolescents with cerebral palsy.Design: Youth versions of both instruments were used for (1) content comparison and (2) analyses of relations between both instruments, based on cross-sectional data.Setting: Clinic.Participants: Participants were adolescents with cerebral palsy, aged 12-18 years; Gross Motor Function Classification System I-V; N=45. Interventions: Not applicable.Main outcome measures: Assessment of Life Habits (Life-H) with USER-Participation.Results: Both instruments measure independence in participation, called accomplishment (Life -H) and restrictions (USER-Participation), and satisfaction with participation. Life-H provides a profile of 6 domain scores and the USER-Participation a total score per dimension. Compared with the USER-Participation, the Life-H contains more specific items, more items not-applicable to many participants and more ceiling effects. Total scores on the accomplishment/restrictions and satisfaction scales between both instruments showed strong correlation coefficients (0.87 and 0.67, respectively). Correlations between domain scores were stronger within the accomplishment/restrictions scales (range 0.37-0.88) compared with the satisfaction scales (range 0.22-0.68).Conclusions: Compared with the USER-Participation, the Life-H takes more effort to complete but provides a more comprehensive assessment of participation. Participation accomplishment/ restrictions scores were more similar between the instruments compared with satisfaction scores. Researchers and clinicians should carefully compare participation instruments in selecting one that matches their purpose. (c) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).