Development of the Arab heritage Activity Card Sort

Area of Science:

• Occupational therapy
• Psychometrics
• Cross-cultural adaptation of assessments

Background:

• Participation is a key indicator of health and well-being, as defined by the World Health Organization's International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health.
• The Activity Card Sort (ACS) is a recognized tool for assessing participation.
• Existing assessment tools may not adequately capture the cultural nuances of participation for Arab populations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe the development and validation of the Arab heritage version of the Activity Card Sort (A-ACS).
• To create a culturally relevant measure of participation for adults in the Middle-East and North Africa (MENA) region.

Main Methods:

• The original ACS underwent forward-backward translation into Arabic following World Health Organization guidelines.
• Culturally specific activities for Arab cultures were identified.
• A total of 156 Jordanian participants from diverse age groups and socioeconomic backgrounds were involved in the validation process.
• Eighty-eight items were validated for the final A-ACS.

Main Results:

• The initial development phase identified 179 activities common to international ACS versions, with 19 unique to Arab culture.
• The final validated A-ACS comprises 88 items.
• This study presents the first validated participation assessment tool specifically for Arab adults from the MENA region.

Conclusions:

• The Arab heritage version of the Activity Card Sort (A-ACS) has been successfully developed and validated.
• The A-ACS is expected to demonstrate significant clinical utility within Arab countries.
• The A-ACS is also anticipated to be valuable for assessing participation in immigrants and individuals of Arab origin worldwide.