Measurement Characteristics and Clinical Utility of the Participation With Recombined Tools-Objective Measure in a Traumatic Brain Injury Population

Participation is the measure of the amount and types of meaningful activities a person engages in at a societal level.¹ Participation of people with disability in society is a primary aim of rehabilitation and yet definitions vary, and it is often not measured or reported.¹ Participation With Recombined Tools-Objective (PART-O) is a National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke traumatic brain injury (TBI) common data element that measures frequencies of participation within the subdomains of productivity, social interaction, and out and about.^{2.,  3.} There are three Yes/No items and the rest of the items are ordinal scale with higher scores indicating more participation. Balanced scoring and Rasch scoring methods are established on the PART-O.¹ Subscale scores are calculated by taking the mean score of all items within the subscale. The PART-O demonstrates excellent construct validity (0.61-0.82) with CIQ, CHART, POPS, Mayo-Portland Participation Index, Cognitive FIM, Supervision Rating Scale, Glasgow Outcome Scale extended, and Disability Rating Scale.⁴ PART-O has adequate construct validity (0.34-0.59) with the Motor FIM, and the Satisfaction with Life Scale, excellent interrater reliability, and adequate internal consistency.^{4.,  5.} Convergent validity is supported by adequate to excellent correlations between various commonly utilized scales and at least 1 factor of the PART-O.⁴ The PART-O can be administered in 15-30 minutes and does not require training or additional equipment. The measure and additional resources can be found on the Center for Outcome Measurement in Brain Injury website.²