Validating the Potential of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health to Identify Barriers to and Facilitators of Consumer Participation

Abstract

The ICF can support the identification of a broad range of external barriers and facilitators relevant to participation and of interest to occupational therapy. However, therapists must use other strategies to gain a comprehensive understanding of the nature, extent and consequences of barriers and facilitators that may exist in a given

ICF from an occupational therapy perspective in adult care: an integrative literature review

“…According to Nordenfelt (135) the component activity/participation could remain uniform and could be qualified and called action and thereby be relevant in the rehabilitation context. A potential use of ICF was found in articles focusing on assessments of participation barriers and facilitators (81). The value of ICF was described as a method of categorizing the activity and participation component in relation to assistive technology (42,43,47,84) and appropriate in rehabilitation, e.g.…”

“…How to deal with the two concepts will be explored through the continuing use of ICF. Further, it was found that ICF did not completely capture the complexity of participation (81). The level of detail and structure of environmental factors (67,78) need to be clarified, e.g.…”

“…ICF implementation has infiuenced research activities relating to documentation and data collection, measuring and categorizing of outcomes (e.g. activity and participation related to assistive technology), organization of information, systematic analysis, and communication and collaboration among health professionals (42)(43)47,(76)(77)(78)(79)(80)(81)(82)(83)(84). Furthermore, applying a comprehensive perspective can facilitate interdisciplinary research and include a wide range of related scientific areas (85)(86)(87).…”

“…At group level, inter-professional communication was described in general (28,78,88,99,116), as well as among health professionals (44,65,71) and within rehabilitation teams (96). Several articles highlighted ICF as a support in the assessment procedure including analyses of the functional level of tiie client (24,38,42,44,78,81,88,90,99,102,(117)(118)(119)(120), goal-setting (99), identification of interventions (78,119), and evaluating the effectiveness of different programmes (78,81,94,119). ICF also facilitates international communication (71,109).…”

“…Working with the ICF classification system is a lengthy process (93,99,128), which may make the uptake of ICF challenging. Occupational therapists are a valuable group who can contribute to the improvement of ICF and its application (65,81,124).…”