A new approach to measuring recovery in injured workers with acute low back pain: Resumption of Activities of Daily Living Scale.
OBJECTIVE
Spontaneous recovery, job satisfaction, and multiple other factors make return to work a highly problematic indicator. Available client questionnaires fail to consider what was "normal" or "usual" prior to low back injury. Based on themes described by injured persons, we suggest a new approach to determining "recovery"--the Resumption of Activities of Daily Living (RADL) Scale.


METHODS
Injured persons and their therapists from 8 different clinics participated in the study.


METHODS
Twenty subjects completed the RADL twice, about 2 days apart, for assessment of test-retest reliability. The RADL was administered, along with other questionnaires, to a separate group of 94 subjects at clinic entry and at discharge or 3 weeks after clinic entry. Both subjects and clinicians made baseline predictions concerning return to work and global ratings of improvement and ability to return to work at follow-up.


RESULTS
The RADL showed good psychometric properties (i.e., test-retest reliability, internal consistency, responsiveness to change, and discriminative abilities).


CONCLUSIONS
The RADL provides a new, standardized measure for assessing the extent of recovery from the time of injury to initiation of treatment, and concurrent with the course of treatment, using the individual's customary level of functioning as the benchmark.
Williams
R M
RM
School of Rehabilitation Science, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. rwilliam@fhs.mcmaster.ca
Myers
A M
AM
D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000208:Acute Disease; D000328:Adult; D003289:Convalescence; D016002:Discriminant Analysis; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D017116:Low Back Pain / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000534:rehabilitation; D008297:Male; D009784:Occupational Diseases / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000534:rehabilitation; D026741:Physical Therapy Modalities; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*; D013997:Time Factors