Original articleDevelopment of a Self-Report Physical Function Instrument for Disability Assessment: Item Pool Construction and Factor Analysis
Section snippets
Methods
All study procedures were approved by the Boston University Internal Review Board.
Results
The flow of item pool development is presented in figure 1, beginning with 381 initial items identified from the literature review, of which 119 originated from PROMIS or Neuro-QOL systems. After cognitive interviewing, 10 items were rewritten and 8 were removed. The final item pool used for the calibration field test is shown in figure 2, consisting of 139 items, including 24 items specific to wheelchair and walking aid use.
The characteristics of the claimant and normative samples
Discussion
This article reports on the initial stages of the development of an instrument to measure physical functioning, the Social Security Administration Physical Function Instrument.
Factor analyses of the item pool using data from a sample of 1017 SSA claimants and a normative sample of 999 U.S. adults revealed a 4-factor structure. The practical implication of this finding is the construction of 1 scale for each of the 4 factors plus a wheelchair mobility scale. This will allow the user to obtain a
Conclusions
The current work integrates major advances in the conceptualization of disability and measurement methodology to provide a contemporary and comprehensive representation of physical functioning for use within the SSA disability programs. The development of the Social Security Administration Physical Function Instrument is a critical step toward the important goal of integrating standardized functional information into the disability determination process within SSA disability programs. The item
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National Academies Consensus Report on Functional Assessment for Adults With Disabilities
2019, Archives of Physical Medicine and RehabilitationThe Work Disability Functional Assessment Battery (WD-FAB)
2019, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Clinics of North AmericaCitation Excerpt :The first step was to develop a pool of questionnaire items to include in the WD-FAB and involved several sequential steps, which included a comprehensive literature review; gap analysis; item generation with expert panel input; stakeholder interviews; cognitive interview testing; and a cross-sectional survey administered by Internet and telephone surveys to a sample of 1017 SSA work disability claimants, and a normative sample of 999 adults from the US general population. Details on item development and surveys are available elsewhere.11,12,14 Analysis of the WD-FAB consisted of 2 steps.
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2018, Archives of Physical Medicine and RehabilitationCitation Excerpt :Consenting subjects provided their demographic information, including race, ethnicity, and education level. We used the items from the WD-FAB v. 1.0 physical function scales, including the following: Changing and Maintaining Body Position (23 items); Whole Body Mobility (16 items); Upper Body Function (22 items); Upper Extremity Fine Motor (28 items); an 8-item Wheelchair Mobility scale.3,8,11 The WD-FAB scales measure difficulty performing functional tasks and activities.
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Supported by the Social Security Administration-National Institutes of Health Interagency Agreements under the National Institutes of Health (contract nos. HHSN269200900004C, HHSN269201000011C, HHSN269201100009I); the National Institutes of Health Intramural Research Program; and a New Investigator Fellowship Training Award from the Foundation for Physical Therapy.
No commercial party having a direct financial interest in the results of the research supporting this article has or will confer a benefit on the authors or on any organization with which the authors are associated.