Development of a Novel Instrument for Occupational Therapy of Assessment of the Physical Environment in the Home—A Methodologic Study on “The Enabler”

Abstract

Occupational therapy assessment of the physical environment in the home in relation to the functional capacity of an individual is essential prior to environmental adaptations to reduce handicap. Standardized methods for research and clinical use are in great demand. To introduce and develop a new instrument for occupational therapy assessment, the novel ideogram “The Enabler” was translated into Swedish and revised. It was first tested in practice by occupational therapists in primary health care. After further revisions of “The Enabler” and pre-teaching of raters, each of 30 individuals in their home environments was assessed by two independent raters. Reliability was evaluated using the kappa statistic. After only a few lessons in advance, the raters were able to administer the assessment in practice in a reliable way, agreement between raters was very good to good, k̄ = 0.68–0.87. The Swedish revised version of “The Enabler” is a useful tool for occupational therapy home evaluation and research.