Measuring social participation: reliability of the LIFE-H in older adults with disabilities.
OBJECTIVE
Much more attention should be paid to instruments documenting social participation as this area is increasingly considered a pivotal outcome of a successful rehabilitation. The purpose of this study was to document the reliability of a participation measure, the Assessment of Life Habits (LIFE-H), in older adults with functional limitations.


METHODS
Eighty-four individuals with physical disabilities living in three different environments were assessed twice with the LIFE-H, an instrument that documents the quality of social participation by assessing a person's performance in daily activities and social roles (life habits).


RESULTS
The intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) computed for intrarater reliability exceeded 0.75 for seven out of the 10 life habits categories. For interrater reliability, the total score and daily activities subscore are highly reliable (ICC </=0.89), and the social roles subscore is moderately reliable (ICC = 0.64). 'Personal care' is the category with the highest ICC, and for five other categories ICCs are moderate to high (< 0.60).


CONCLUSIONS
LIFE-H is a valuable addition to instruments that mostly emphasize the concepts of function or functional independence. It is particularly meaningful to evaluate the participation of older adults in significant social role domains such as recreation and community life. It may be considered among the instruments having the best fit with the ICF definition of participation (the person's involvement in a life situation) and a majority of its related domains.
Noreau
Luc
L
Rehabilitation Department, Faculty of Medicine, Université Laval, Quebec City, Canada. Luc.Noreau@rea.ulaval.ca
Desrosiers
Johanne
J
Robichaud
Line
L
Fougeyrollas
Patrick
P
Rochette
Annie
A
Viscogliosi
Chantal
C
D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D015331:Cohort Studies; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D006233:Persons with Disabilities / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015588:Observer Variation; D011788:Quality of Life; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012494:Sampling Studies; D018434:Sickness Impact Profile