Qualitative experiences of new motorised mobility scooter users relevant to their scooter skills: a secondary analysis

Abstract

Objective

To explore the experiences of new motorised mobility scooter users from the perspectives of the assessment and training of scooter skills.

Design

Descriptive secondary analysis of qualitative data.

Setting

Community.

Participants

20 New users of motorised mobility scooters.

Interventions

Not applicable.

Main outcome measures

Directed qualitative analysis of up to four semi-structured interviews over the course of the first year of scooter use, to identify themes and sub-themes that could inform recommendations regarding assessment and training protocols.

Results

We identified two themes. The first related to potential new content. As one example of the sub-themes, there were many excerpts that dealt with the use of skills in various combinations and permutations that were used to carry out activities during everyday life and participate in society. These excerpts suggested the importance of training skills in combination to facilitate skill transfer (or generalizability). The second theme is related to enhancements of existing content. As one example of the sub-themes, there were several excerpts that dealt with scooter security. These excerpts led to the recommendation that removing and inserting the scooter key should be added to the assessment criteria for the “turns power on and off” skill of the Wheelchair Skills Test (WST) and its questionnaire version (WST-Q).

Conclusions

The experiences of scooter users over the first year of receiving a scooter appear to be relevant to the assessment and training of scooter skills and suggest themes for further study. Clinical trial registration number: NCT02696213

IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATION

• The experiences of new scooter users are highly relevant to the assessment and training of scooter skills.

• These experiences suggest both potential new content and enhancements of existing content to the Wheelchair Skills Program Manual.

Keywords:

• Rehabilitation
• assessment
• training
• motorised mobility scooter
• wheelchair

Acknowledgements

We thank Gillian Bever, BSW and Nicole Banting, BSc who assisted with data collection and data organization.

Disclosure statement

There are no conflicts of interest for any author. No commercial party having a direct financial interest in the results of the research supporting this article has or will confer a benefit upon the author(s) or upon any organisation with which the author(s) is/are associated.

Additional information

Funding

Provided by an open operating grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) [F15-00959]. The funders had no role in the study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.