New version of the Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory (PEDI-CAT): translation, cultural adaptation to Brazil and analyses of psychometric properties

BACKGROUND: The Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory-Computer Adaptive Test (PEDI-CAT), developed with innovative measurement methodologies, evaluates functioning of children and youth, from 0 to 21 years, with different health conditions. It is a revision of an earlier instrument (PEDI) that has been used in national and international clinical practice and research. It was felt to be necessary to make this new version (PEDI-CAT) available in Brazil. OBJECTIVES: Translate and culturally adapt the PEDI-CAT to the Brazilian-Portuguese language and test its psychometric properties. METHOD: This methodological study was developed through the following stages: (1) translation, (2) synthesis, (3) back-translation, (4) revision by an expert committee, (5) testing of the pre-final version, and (6) evaluation of the psychometric properties. The 276 translated PEDI-CAT items were divided into three age groups (0-7, 8-14, and 15-21 years). RESULTS: The PEDI-CAT translation followed all six stages. The adaptations incorporated cultural and socioeconomic class specificities. The PEDI-CAT/Brazil showed good indices of inter-examiner (intraclass correlation coefficient-ICC=0.83-0.89) and test-retest (ICC=0.96-0.97) reliability, good internal consistency (0.99) and small standard error of measurement in all three age groups (0.12-0.17). Factor analyses grouped the items from the three functional skills domains into one factor, and items from the responsibility scale into three factors, supporting the adequacy of these factor solutions to the conceptual structure of the instrument and the developmental model. CONCLUSION: The PEDI-CAT/Brazil is a theoretically consistent, culturally appropriate, and reliable instrument. Its availability in Brazil will contribute to the evaluation and measurement of functional outcomes from clinical interventions, longitudinal follow-up, and rehabilitation research

Development of a first-contact protocol to guide assessment of adult patients in rehabilitation services networks

OBJECTIVE: This paper describes the development of the Protocol for Identification of Problems for Rehabilitation (PLPR), a tool to standardize collection of functional information based on the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF). DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROTOCOL: The PLPR was developed for use during the initial contact with adult patients within a public network of rehabilitation services. Steps to develop the protocol included: survey of the ICF codes most used by clinical professionals; compilation of data from functional instruments; development and pilot testing of a preliminary version in the service settings; discussion with professionals and development of the final version. The final version includes: user identification; social and health information; brief functional description (BFD); summary of the BFD; and PLPR results. Further testing of the final version will be conducted. CONCLUSIONS: The protocol standardizes the first contact between the user and the rehabilitation service. Systematic use of the protocol could also help to create a functional database that would allow comparisons between rehabilitation services and countries over time

The effects caused by the replacement of native riparian forest with Eucalyptus sp. on the benthic macro-invertebrate community.

The replacement of native riparian forests with exotic plants, especially Eucalyptus sp. can cause changes in ecological processes of small orders rivers. The leaves of Eucalyptus sp. have lower nutrients concentration, higher hardness and secondary metabolites which inhibit the decomposing micro-organisms and benthic macro-invertebrate colonization, which are the connection between the dead organic matter and the rest of the food chain. Thus the aim of the study was to test the following hypothesis: leaf decomposition rate will be lower in the substrate composed of Eucalyptus sp. leaves, when compared to the substrate composed of native tree species leaves; the benthic macro-invertebrates diversity will be lower in the substrate composed of Eucalyptus sp. leaves than the one composed of native tree species leaves. Sixty litter bags were used in the experiment, 30 of them were filled with 5 g of Eucalyptus sp leaves and the other 30 with a mixture of native trees leaves. From the results it was concluded that leaf decomposition rates were similar for both substrates, substrate composed of native trees leaves and substrate composed of Eucalyptus sp. leaves; the benthic macroinvertebrates diversity was lower in the substrate composed of Eucalyptus sp. leaves when compared to the substrate composed of native tree species leaves

A systematic review

This study was conducted at the Psychology Research Centre ( PSI/01662 ), School of Psychology , the University of Minho , supported by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) through the Portuguese State Budget ( UID/PSI/01662/2020 ). This research was also supported by FCT projects PTDC/MHC/PCN/1530/2014. We thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and recommendations, which has assisted us in improving the quality and presentation of this article. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The AuthorsThe caregiver's touch behavior during early infancy is linked to multiple developmental outcomes. However, social touch remains a challenging construct to operationalize, and although observational tools have been a gold standard for measuring touch in caregiver-infant interactions, no systematic review has been conducted before. We followed the PRISMA guidelines and reviewed the literature to describe and classify the main characteristics of the available observational instruments. Of the 3042 publications found, we selected 45 that included an observational measure, and from those we identified 12 instruments. Most of the studies were of infants younger than six months of age and assessed touch in two laboratory tasks: face-to-face interaction and still-face procedure. We identified three approaches for evaluating the caregiver's touch behavior: strictly behavioral (the observable touch behavior), functional (the functional role of the touch behavior), or mixed (a combination of the previous two). Half of the instruments were classified as functional, 25% as strictly observational, and 25% as mixed. The lack of conceptual and operational uniformity and consistency between instruments is discussed.publishersversionpublishe