The Canadian Occupational Performance Measure scale – Testing its cultural fidelity in the Austrian population

Background: Occupation is the core of occupational therapy, however it is hard to measure. The COPM is among the most well-known assessments in occupational therapy. However, neither the assessment nor the scale, have ever... [ view full abstract ]

Background:
Occupation is the core of occupational therapy, however it is hard to measure. The COPM is among the most well-known assessments in occupational therapy. However, neither the assessment nor the scale, have ever been tested to its cultural sensitivity for the use in Austrian population. Therefore this study was conducted within the Austrian population, comparing it to better known scales in Austria such as the VAS and the Austrian school grading system, to see if a cultural adaption has to be made.
Method:
The data for the study was collected with the help of an online questionnaire. 194 participants self-assessed their performance on four different activities of daily life using all three scales. A Rasch analysis was done to evaluate the received values.
Results:
Results showed a high correlation among all three scales and all four items with correlation values varying between 0.75 and 0.95. Nevertheless, allocation of the scores was often poor. Additionally, uniform differential item functioning (DIF) between different genders and ages was seen. Furthermore, the category probability curves presented high variances on where the thresholds overlapped.
Conclusion:
The study provides good support that the COPM scale is less culturally dependent than anticipated. However, disordered thresholds and poorly allocated scores necessitate the development of clear definitions for the units of the scale. Furthermore, measurement invariances in gender and age have to be considered for practice to make the right inferences of the scores.