Measurement properties of a modified measure of participation for persons with spinal cord injury

This study refines a tool (PM-PAC) to measure how well adults with spinal cord injuries (SCI) participate in daily life. The tool looks at three main areas: Productivity, Social, and Community involvement. Researchers analyzed data from a large study of 520 adults with SCI to improve the tool. They checked if the tool's questions made sense, if the tool accurately measured participation, and if the tool worked the same for different groups of people with SCI. The study found that the tool measures participation well in the three areas. The tool is best at measuring participation for people with average levels of participation. More work is needed to make the tool better for people with very low or very high participation.

• 1
  Three participation domains (Productivity, Social, and Community) were supported with good model fit in confirmatory factor analysis and good item fit in Rasch analysis.
• 2
  Differential Item Functioning (DIF) was found in one item, but its magnitude was small, suggesting the item didn't need to be eliminated.
• 3
  The precision of each scale was better for participants in the middle range of participation and lower for those with extremely low or high participation.