Pachpilai Chaiwong. Development of occupational therapy cognitive outcome measure for the elderly with cognitive impairments. Doctoral Degree(Biomedical Sciences). มหาวิทยาลัยเชียงใหม่. สำนักหอสมุด. : Chiang Mai University, 2022.
Development of occupational therapy cognitive outcome measure for the elderly with cognitive impairments
Abstract:
The purposes of this study were to explore current occupational therapy (OT) practice for cognitive assessment and intervention for the elderly with cognitive impairments (CI) in Thailand to develop an occupational therapy cognitive outcome measure and examine its psychometric properties. The study was divided into two phases. Phase one was an exploration of the OT practices, and Phase two was the development of the outcome measure and examining its psychometric properties. Phase one employed questionnaires and in-depth interviews for obtaining data. One hundred and fifty-two occupational therapists responded to the survey. Most worked full-time (94.08%), and 74.34% worked at general hospitals. Participants were more likely to employ standardized cognitive tests (45.33%) than non-standardized assessments (38.00%). Typical standardized tests were screening tests. The most commonly reported cognitive problem was basic cognition (77.63% to 98.08%). The main cognitive intervention focused on basic cognition (80.92% to 94.74%). Common interventions were caregiver education (83.89%). Challenges to OT intervention were the insufficient number of therapists, unclear intervention guidelines, and occupational therapists had poor evaluation skills. Furthermore, the participants needed a cognitive test that contained all aspects of cognitive functions. In phase two, the outcome measure named the Occupational Therapy Cognitive Outcome Measure (OTCOM) which was developed and examined for its internal consistency, known-group construct validity, concurrent validity, rater reliability, and responsiveness. The participants were one hundred and ten elderly people ; sixty-one older adults with CI and forty-nine healthy older adults. The Cronbach\'s alpha coefficient was calculated for internal consistency. Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was used to analyze rater reliability. The concurrent and known-group construct validity analyses were computed by Pearson correlation and independent t-test, respectively. Both effect size (EF) and standardized response mean (SRM) were calculated for responsiveness. The results showed good internal consistency (Į=.88) and excellent inter-rater and intra-rater reliability (ICC=.99). A high correlation between the OTCOM and the Dynamic Lowenstein Occupational Therapy Cognitive Assessment-Geriatric (DLOTCA-G) and the Thai Cognitive-Perceptual Test (Thai-CPT) was found, indicating good concurrent validity. There was a significant difference between the older adults with CI and the healthy group, which suggests good knowngroup construct validity. Responsiveness was shown as large effect size and standardized response mean in the total score. In conclusion, this study suggested that the developed cognitive outcome measure (OTCOM) might be used to assess cognitive function for Thai elderly with cognitive impairment.