The Teen-Aged Life Impact Burn Recovery Evaluation profile: Item pool development for a computer adaptive test

Area of Science:

• Rehabilitation medicine
• Pediatric burn care
• Patient-reported outcomes

Background:

• Adolescence is a period of significant developmental and social change.
• Burn injuries can complicate these changes, necessitating tailored assessment tools.
• A specific patient-reported outcome measure is needed for adolescent burn survivors.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a condition-specific patient-reported outcome measure for adolescent burn survivors.
• To create item pools for assessing the unique challenges faced by this population.
• To establish a foundation for a computer adaptive test (CAT) for burn recovery evaluation.

Main Methods:

• Extensive literature review of 5041 items from 182 instruments.
• Qualitative analysis and six rounds of expert consensus meetings.
• Cognitive interviews with six adolescent burn survivors and grounded theory methods.

Main Results:

• A finalized pool of 171 items was developed.
• Items were categorized into activity (106 items) and participation (65 items) domains.
• A 5-point Likert scale was used for item response (frequency or agreement).

Conclusions:

• The Teen-Aged Life Impact Burn Recovery Evaluation (LIBRE) item pools were rigorously developed.
• Expert consensus and direct engagement with teenagers ensured relevance and clarity.
• Future research will focus on psychometric evaluation and developing a CAT for LIBRE.