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Usability and Reliability of an Accessible Patient-Reported Outcome Measure (PROM) Software: The Pediatric Evaluation
Jessica M Kramer1, Ariel E Schwartz2, Daniel K Davies3
1Jessica M. Kramer, PhD, OTR/L, is Associate Professor, Department of Occupational Therapy, University of Florida, Gainesville. At the time of the study, Kramer was Associate Professor, Department of Occupational Therapy, Boston University, Boston, MA; jessica.kramer@phhp.ufl.edu.
Importance:
Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) are used in rehabilitation to evaluate outcomes. We integrated a new PROM for transition-age youth with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (IDD), the Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory-Patient-Reported Outcome (PEDI-PRO), with a computer-delivered survey platform (Accessible Testing Learning and Assessment System) to enhance cognitive accessibility.
Objective:
To evaluate the usability of the PEDI-PRO software and to investigate its reliability and acceptability to transition-age youth with IDD.
Design:
Clinical field testing and a survey; repeated-observation test-retest design.
Setting:
Clinicians evaluated the PEDI-PRO's usability in school and health care contexts; research staff conducted reliability and acceptability testing in natural settings.
Participants:
Occupational therapists (n = 12) and physical therapists (n = 2) administered the PEDI-PRO to 39 youths with IDD. Fifty-five transition-age youth with IDD (M age = 19.7) completed the PEDI-PRO twice.
Outcomes And Measures:
Clinicians completed the System Usability Survey (SUS) and open-ended feedback. Youth provided feedback via a brief survey.
Results:
The mean SUS rating was 84.00 (SD = 11.68), exceeding the industry standard. Intraclass correlations ranged from .80 to .83 across the three PEDI-PRO domains. Internal reliability (α) was .86-.90 across domains. Youth reported that they liked the accessibility features: interface images, button sounds, read-aloud audio, and rating category choices (M = 88.8%, SD = 5.1%).
Conclusions And Relevance:
The PEDI-PRO supported transition-age youth with IDD to reliably report perceived functional performance. The accessible software was favorably perceived by both clinicians and youth.
What This Article Adds:
Design features of the PEDI-PRO make it easy to use in practice with transition-age youth with IDD. The PEDI-PRO's cognitively accessible administrative design, including step-by-step instructions for teaching PROM use and a self-reflective questioning technique, could serve as a training model for this and other PROMs.
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