Test-retest reliability of the Picture My Participation Instrument

Abstract

Introduction: People who have disabilities are often deprived of opportunities to be involved in daily life situations. While research attempts to explore the participation patterns of individuals with disabilities, there is a paucity of studies that have obtained the personal opinions of participation from children with intellectual disabilities, and none that have obtained personal opinions (self-reports) from children living in low- to middle-income (LAMI) countries. Reasons for this are thought to be the lack of measures and methods available for obtaining self-reports from children with intellectual disabilities. The Picture my Participation (PMP) instrument has been developed for use in LAMI countries and when used with the Talking MatsTM framework, ensures that the views of children with intellectual disabilities can be obtained. This study aimed to assess the test-retest reliability of the PMP instrument.

Methods: Sixteen children aged 12 to 17 years with intellectual disabilities and their primary caregivers took part in this study. Each participant pair was required to complete the Picture My Participation survey twice in a space of two weeks. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient and Spearman’s rank order were used to measure internal consistency and test-retest reliability.

Results and conclusions: While the questionnaire yielded high alpha values, indicating high internal consistency, the values for test-retest reliability were incomparable due to a small sample size and limited data. Further study is required with a larger and more diverse data sample.