Evaluating Capacity to Live Independently and Safely in the Community: Performance Assessment of Self-Care Skills

Abstract

To determine clients' capacity for community living, occupational therapists must use measures that capture the person—task–environment transaction and compare clients' task performance to a performance standard. The Performance Assessment of Self-care Skills, a performance-based, criterion-referenced, observational tool, fulfills this purpose. In this practice analysis, using data from this tool from multiple clinical studies (N = 941), the authors describe tasks that clients from various diagnostic populations could and could not perform independently and safely. For clinicians, the Performance Assessment of Self-care Skills can be used to identify which daily tasks are compromised and the point of task breakdown, as well as to provide guidance about potential interventions.