Stability of person ability measures in people with acquired brain injury in the use of everyday technology: the test–retest reliability of the Management of Everyday Technology Assessment (META)

Abstract

Aim: To evaluate the test–retest reliability of the Management of Everyday Technology Assessment (META) in a sample of people with acquired brain injury (ABI). Method: The META was administered twice within a two-week period to 25 people with ABI. A Rasch measurement model was used to convert the META ordinal raw scores into equal-interval linear measures of each participant’s ability to manage everyday technology (ET). Test–retest reliability of the stability of the person ability measures in the META was examined by a standardized difference Z-test and an intra-class correlations analysis (ICC 1). Results: The results showed that the paired person ability measures generated from the META were stable over the test–retest period for 22 of the 25 subjects. The ICC 1 correlation was 0.63, which indicates good overall reliability. Conclusion: The META demonstrated acceptable test–retest reliability in a sample of people with ABI. The results illustrate the importance of using sufficiently challenging ETs (relative to a person’s abilities) to generate stable META measurements over time.

Implications for Rehabilitation

• The findings add evidence regarding the test–retest reliability of the person ability measures generated from the observation assessment META in a sample of people with ABI.

• The META might support professionals in the evaluation of interventions that are designed to improve clients’ performance of activities including the ability to manage ET.

• Assessment
• brain injury
• occupational therapy
• technology
• test–retest reliability

Acknowledgements

The authors first want to thank all the participants who chose to participate in the study and generously demonstrated their abilities to manage ET. Additionally, we thank the professionals of the County Council of Norrbotten: Ann-Sofi Nilsson for support with the selection of participants, occupational therapists Kristina Johansson and Anita Levén for support with the data collection, and statistician Robert Lundqvist for support with the statistical analysis.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no declarations of interest. The study received economic support from The Swedish Association for STROKE (Strokeförbundet), the Strategic Research Health Care Program of Umeå University, the Norrbotten County Council, Luleå University of Technology, and the Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society, Karolinska Institutet