257409 Participation in the home environment among children with and without disabilities

Tuesday, October 30, 2012 : 1:11 PM - 1:29 PM

Mary Khetani, ScD , Department of Occupational Therapy, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO
Mary Law, PhD , CanChild Centre for Childhood Disability Research and School of Rehabilitation Sciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada
Dana Anaby, PhD , Department of Physical and Occupational Therapy, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada
Rachel Teplicky, MSc , CanChild Centre for Childhood Disability Research and School of Rehabilitation Sciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada
Wendy Coster, PhD , Department of Occupational Therapy, Boston University, Boston, MA
Gary Bedell, PhD , Department of Occupational Therapy, Tufts University, Medford, MA
     
Purpose: Children's participation is an indicator of their health and wellness. The Participation and Environment Measure for Children and Youth (PEM-CY) was designed for use in population-level studies to examine children's participation patterns specific to the home, school, and community. For this study, we examined participation patterns and environmental influences specific to the home setting for children with and without disabilities. Method: Data were collected online from 576 caregivers of children with and without disabilities, aged 5 to 17 (mean=11 years), in the U.S. and Canada. We performed ANOVA analyses to examine group differences in PEM-CY summary scores and developed radar plots to report item-level group differences. Results: Significant group differences were found across all summary scores (ES=0.04-0.20). Children with disabilities were reported to participate in fewer activities (ES=0.05), have lower levels of involvement (ES=0.08), and experience greater barriers (ES=0.20) to participation at home. Higher percentages of parents in the disability sample desired change in their child's participation when getting together with others (68% versus 38%), socializing using technology (61% versus 31%) and for personal care (69% versus 30%). Greatest barriers to home participation for children with disabilities were physical, cognitive and social activity demands (26%-43% versus 3%-6%), lack of adequate/available services (35% versus 5%), money (30% versus 4%) and help (50% versus 12%). Conclusion: Children with disabilities participate in less complex and quieter/sedentary activities. This, in addition to reported environmental barriers to participation at home, suggests the potential importance of home-based interventions to promote health and wellness throughout adolescence.

Learning Areas:
Assessment of individual and community needs for health education

Learning Objectives:
1. Describe how participation and environment are operationally defined by users of the new Participation and Environment Measure for Children and Youth (PEM-CY). 2. Discuss the extent to which scores obtained from the PEM-CY provide profiles of home participation and environmental supports and barriers to home participation among school-age children with and without disabilities.

Keywords: Children and Adolescents, Assessments

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have been involved in the development and validation of the Participation and Environment Measure for Children and Youth and currently serve as co-investigator for a knowledge translation grant to make this new instrument available to researchers, practitioners, and parents for use in a variety of decision-making contexts. I have launched the Children's Participation and Environment Research Lab at Colorado State University to help build critical mass in this important area of research.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 4205.0: Social participation, environment and disability