The Community Adaptive Planning Assessment: a clinical tool for documenting future planning with clients

Area of Science:

• Rehabilitation research
• Clinical assessment tools
• Occupational therapy practice

Background:

• Effective collaborative planning between therapists and clients is crucial for future goal setting.
• Existing clinical tools may lack features for organizing this collaborative process.
• Qualitative assessment tools require robust evaluation methods.

Purpose of the Study:

• Identify essential features for a clinical tool supporting therapist-client future planning.
• Describe the Community Adaptive Planning Assessment (CAPA) tool's structure and application.
• Summarize research on CAPA's usability, trustworthiness, and clinical effectiveness.
• Propose future research directions for qualitative assessment tools.

Main Methods:

• Evaluated initial and revised CAPA versions through multiple studies.
• Assessed usability via therapist questionnaires across diverse healthcare settings (n=105 clients).
• Examined trustworthiness by comparing client and family member information (n=21 clients).
• Analyzed clinical effectiveness for discharge planning using content analysis of community outcomes.

Main Results:

• The CAPA tool exhibits strong usability, trustworthiness, and clinical effectiveness.
• These positive findings apply across various service delivery systems and client populations when used by experienced therapists.
• The study supports using usability, trustworthiness, and effectiveness as key evaluation criteria for qualitative consultation-based practice tools.

Conclusions:

• Further investigation into therapist-client collaborative future planning is needed.
• Efficient documentation methods for qualitative practice aspects are essential.
• Developing effective evaluation strategies for consultation-based practice outcomes is important.
• Establishing clear criteria for emerging qualitative assessment and intervention tools is a priority.