Assessment Instrument for Problem-focused Coping. Reliability test of APC. Part 1

Area of Science:

• Rehabilitation medicine
• Psychometrics
• Patient-reported outcomes

Background:

• The Assessment Instrument of Problem-focused Coping (APC) was developed using qualitative interviews.
• It assesses patient-reported competence in activities of daily living (ADL), perceived problems, and satisfaction with ADL.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the reliability of the APC instrument.
• Specifically focusing on intra-rater reliability and internal consistency.

Main Methods:

• The study involved 40 patients diagnosed with postpolio syndrome.
• Internal consistency was assessed using Cronbach's alpha.
• Test-retest reliability was evaluated over a period for 28 items.

Main Results:

• The APC demonstrated acceptable internal consistency (alpha = 0.70), supporting its construct validity.
• Internal consistency confirmed the instrument's validity for assessing coping in postpolio syndrome patients.
• Test-retest stability varied from low to high, indicating an unsatisfactory performance for evaluation purposes over time.

Conclusions:

• The APC instrument shows promise with acceptable internal consistency for postpolio syndrome patients.
• Further research with larger cohorts is recommended to improve the test-retest reliability of the APC for evaluating activities of daily living (ADL).
• The APC may not yet be a suitable evaluation instrument due to insufficient temporal stability.