Are the American normative standard scores applicable to the German version of the Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory (PEDI-G)?

Abstract

Background

The Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory (PEDI) is an assessment to evaluate children’s performance in activities of daily living.

Aims

The study investigated if the normative standard scores of the PEDI are applicable to the German version of the PEDI (PEDI-G) in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and whether there are differences in the applicability of the PEDI-G between the three countries.

Materials and methods

75 children with normal development (35 girls, 40 boys) from Germany (n = 17), Austria (n = 16), and Switzerland (n = 42) aged between 0.9 month and 7.3 years (SD = 2.03) participated in the study. Descriptive statistics, independent samples t-tests, univariate analyses of variance (ANOVA) and post hoc Tukey tests were applied.

Results

No significant differences were identified. However, the German-speaking sample showed higher scores for the domain social function in both scales and in the Caregiver Assistance Scale self-care. Lower scores were identified in the Functional Skills Scale mobility.

Conclusions and significance

The results support that the normative standard scores of the PEDI are applicable to the PEDI-G and for Austria, Germany and Switzerland, as no significant differences between the countries were identified. However, the generalizability of the results is limited due to sample size and recruitment procedures.

Keywords:

• Child
• child pre-school
• caregivers
• reference values

Acknowledgments

The first author thanks the persons involved in the recruitment of participants and data collection. A special thanks goes to the parents of the children who participated in the study. This research was carried out in partial fulfillment of the requirements of obtaining the degree of the European Master of Science in Occupational Therapy.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Normative standard scores have been developed through a normative sample of 412 children aged between 6 months and 7.5 years and living in the Northeastern part of the USA. Normative-standard scores are the transformed raw scores, which are age-adjusted and based on a mean of 50 and a standard deviation of 10. The normative standard scores give an image of a child’s functional skills and performance according to its age compared to the normative sample (Haley et al. 1992).

2 Project ID PB_2016-02143.