Development and evaluation of a tablet-based participation measure for older adults in rehabilitation settings

Purpose: To develop a tablet-based participation measure and to evaluate its reliability and acceptability to an older Chinese population in rehabilitation settings.Method: A multidimensional, self-reported participation measure, the Participation Measure-3 Domains, 4 Dimensions (PM-3D4D), was programed into mobile application software and presented on tablet computers. To explore the reliability of the tablet-based PM-3D4D, 80 adults in rehabilitation outpatient settings aged ≥65 years completed the tablet and the paper versions of the measure at baseline and at 1-week follow-up. Intraclass correlation coefficients were calculated for concordance and test-retest reliability. Participants' acceptability toward the two versions of the measure was described.Results: The tablet-based PM-3D4D showed good to excellent test-retest reliability (Intraclass correlation coefficients = 0.79 ∼ 0.96) and high concordance with the paper-form (Intraclass correlation coefficients = 0.74-1.00). Approximately, 44% participants reported preference for the tablet-based measure, and 20% reported preference for the paper-form measure. Many participants found the tablet-based measure user-friendly, convenient, and environmentally-friendly.Conclusions: Findings of this study provide supportive evidence for administering the tablet-based PM-3D4D to an older Chinese population in rehabilitation settings and suggest a promising measurement methodology for future clinical practice.Implications for rehabilitationThe developed tablet-based participation measure, the Participation Measure-3 Domains, 4 Dimensions (PM-3D4D), fills a critical void for an efficient and reliable rehabilitation outcome measure tailored to the needs of older adults in rehabilitation settings.The tablet-based PM-3D4D is a reliable outcome measure.Most of the older adults in rehabilitation settings preferred to use the tablet-based participation measure than the paper-form measure; and very few of them reported difficulty with using the tablet-version measure.A high concordance was found between data collected by the tablet version PM-3D4D and data collected by the paper version PM-3D4D.