International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health categories explored for self-rated participation in Swedish adolescents and adults with a mild intellectual disability.

OBJECTIVE To explore internal consistency and correlations between perceived ability, performance and perceived importance in a preliminary selection of self-reported items representing the activity/participation component of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF). DESIGN Structured interview study. SUBJECTS Fifty-five Swedish adolescents and adults with a mild intellectual disability. METHODS Questions about perceived ability, performance and perceived importance were asked on the basis of a 3-grade Likert-scale regarding each of 68 items representing the 9 ICF domains of activity/participation. RESULTS Internal consistency for perceived ability (Cronbach's alpha for all 68 items): 0.95 (values for each domain varied between 0.57 and 0.85), for performance: 0.86 (between 0.27 and 0.66), for perceived importance: 0.84 (between 0.27 and 0.68). Seventy-two percent of the items showed correlations >0.5 (mean=0.59) for performance vs perceived importance, 41% >0.5 (mean=0.47) for perceived ability vs performance and 12% >0.5 (mean=0.28) for perceived ability vs perceived importance. CONCLUSION Measures of performance and perceived importance may have to be based primarily on their estimated clinical relevance for describing aspects of the ICF participation concept. With a clinimetric approach, parts of the studied items and domains may be used to investigate factors related to different patterns and levels of participation, and outcomes of rehabilitation.