title: Impact of home modification services on ability in everyday life for people ageing with disabilities.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To examine the impact of home modifications on self-rated ability in everyday life from various aspects for people ageing with disabilities.
  
  
  METHODS
  The study sample was recruited from an agency providing home modification services in Sweden and comprised 73 subjects whose referrals had been approved and who were scheduled to receive home modifications (intervention group) and 41 subjects waiting for their applications to be assessed for approval (comparison group). The subjects rated their ability in everyday life using the Client-Clinician Assessment Protocol Part I on 2 occasions: at baseline and follow-up. The Client-Clinician Assessment Protocol Part I provides data on the clients' self-rated independence, difficulty and safety in everyday life. The data were first subjected to Rasch analysis in order to convert the raw scores into interval measures. Further analyses to investigate changes in self-rated ability were conducted with parametric statistics.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Subjects who had received home modifications reported a statistically significant improvement in their self-rated ability in everyday life compared with those in the comparison group. Subjects who had received home modifications reported less difficulty and increased safety, especially in tasks related to self-care in the bathroom and transfers, such as getting in and out of the home.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Home modifications have a positive impact on self-rated ability in everyday life, especially on decreasing the level of difficulty and increasing safety.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurobiology, Care Science and Society, Division of Occupational Therapy, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. ingela.petersson@ki.se
authors.forename: Ingela
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Petersson
authors.forename: Margareta
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lilja
authors.forename: Joy
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hammel
authors.forename: Anders
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kottorp
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology / Q000523:psychology; D001107:Architectural Accessibility; D006233:Persons with Disabilities / Q000523:psychology / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006798:Housing; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012449:Safety; D020377:Self Efficacy; D012656:Self-Help Devices; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors