Evaluation of participation in a former rehabilitation population: a comparison between USER-Participation Restriction and Satisfaction subscales and PROMIS Ability to Participate and PROMIS Satisfaction with participation 8-item short forms in a cross-sectional multicentre study

BACKGROUND: Several Patient Reported Outcome Measurements (PROMs) can be used to quantify participation in rehabilitation patients, yet there is limited comparative research on their content and psychometric properties to make an informed decision between them.

OBJECTIVE: To compare the content and several psychometric properties of the Restriction and Satisfaction subscales of the Utrecht Scale for Evaluation of Rehabilitation - Participation (USER-P) with the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System Ability to Participate in Social Roles and Activities (PROMIS-APS) and Satisfaction with Social Roles and Activities (PROMIS-SPS) v2.0 8-item short forms.

METHODS: A cross-sectional survey among patients who received rehabilitation treatment ( N = 563). Coverage of participation domains, distributions, inter-item correlations, internal consistency, construct validity, and discriminative validity were compared between the PROMs.

RESULTS: The USER-P subscales cover more participation domains than the PROMIS short forms. All PROMs demonstrated adequate internal consistency ( α > 0.82) and each had >75% of the hypotheses regarding construct validity confirmed.

CONCLUSIONS: The internal consistency, construct and discriminative validity were similar between the USER-P subscales and the PROMIS short forms. It appeared that the USER-P offers more broad information about participation on item level and the total scores of PROMIS short forms offer more precise general information regarding participation.