Systematic review of measures and their concepts used in published studies focusing on rehabilitation in the acute hospital and in early post-acute rehabilitation facilities

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Abstract
To identify outcome measures cited in published studies focusing on rehabilitation in the acute hospital and in early post-acute rehabilitation facilities, and to identify and quantify the concepts contained in these measures using the ICF as a reference.Electronic searches of Medline, Embase, CINAHL, Pedro and the Cochrane Library from 1997 to March 2002 were carried out. In a first step, abstracts of the retrieved studies were checked and data on the outcome measures and certain characteristics of the included studies were extracted. In a second step, the items of the questionnaires and their underlying concepts were specified. These concepts were then linked to ICF categories using standardized linkage rules.From the 1,657 abstracts retrieved, 259 studies met the inclusion criteria. In a second step, 277 formal assessment instruments and 351 single clinical measures were retrieved. A total of 1,353 concepts were extracted from the clinical and technical measures. Ninety-six percent of these concepts could be linked to ICF categories. Fifty-six second-level ICF categories representing the concepts contained in the measures. Twenty-six (46%) of the 56 categories belong to the component Body Functions, five (9%) to the component Body Structures, and 25 (45%) to the component Activities and Participation.The ICF provides a valuable reference to identify and quantify the concepts of outcome measures focusing on rehabilitation in the acute hospital and in early post-acute rehabilitation facilities. Our findings indicate a need to define and to agree on 'what should be measured' in rehabilitation care to allow for a comparison of patient populations.

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