Occupation

Abstracts Tuesday 28 June 2016
Tuesday 28 June 2016
Session 2.1
Capturing clinical change in children and youth with
brain injury using the UK FIM+FAM
Austin D 1 , Spencer H 1 , Wales L 2 , Frater T 1 , Brunel
University 1 , The Children’s Trust 2
Background: Occupational therapists are required to use
validated measures of activity and participation to demonstrate
intervention outcomes to commissioners and service users
(College of Occupational Therapists 2013). Existing measures of
activity and participation have significant limitations for children
and youth with ABI aged over 8 years.
Aim: This study examined the ability of the UK Functional
Independence Measure+Functional Assessment Measure
(FIM+FAM) (Turner-Stokes et al 1999) to detect clinical change in
children and youth with ABI aged over 8 years.
Methods: Secondary retrospective pretest-post test analysis of
one sample (n=72 age 8–17 yrs) from a paediatric residential
rehabilitation centre. Internal responsiveness was examined using
Wilcoxon Signed Rank tests and effect sizes indices external
responsiveness was examined in relation to the Neurological
Impairment Scale (NIS) using Spearman’s Correlation Coefficient.
Ethical approval was granted by Brunel University’s Ethics
Committee.
Results: Several methods of responsiveness suggested the UK
FIM+FAM was able to detect clinically meaningful change in
children and youth with ABI over 8 years. In average, highly
significant change was detected from admission to discharge on
Motor, Cognitive and total UK FIM+FAM scores (p