Development of a Functional Assessment for Children and Youth who are Hospitalized Project Abstract The objective of this project is to develop a marketable clinician-reported, judgement-based functional assessment, using contemporary measurement technology that transforms the assessment of children hospitalized in the US. Item response theory (IRT) and computer adaptive test (CAT) principles will be used to direct the procedures and accomplish the following specific aims of this proposed Phase I project: 1) Generate assessment items in the functional domains of self-care, mobility and social/cognitive for children who are hospitalized (intensive, acute, and post-acute care) through literature review, focus groups, and expert review; 2) Cognitive test all items and produce 3 item pools (self-care, mobility, social/cognitive); 3) Pilot test the item pools for appropriateness, feasibility and distributional characteristics; and 4) Produce refined item pools for Phase II calibration, development and validation of a CAT and short forms. Given the high prevalence of children hospitalized each year and promising emerging medical and rehabilitation interventions, an accurate and efficient assessment of pediatric function is needed. The proposed new measure, the Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory for Hospital Use (PEDI-Hospital), will be based on the original PEDI and the PEDI-CAT, measures of function used worldwide. The PEDI-Hospital will provide a new setting-specific, feasible, efficient, and responsive measure of function for children of all ages and abilities that can be used across all levels of hospital care. The project team is experienced and successful in identifying market need for clinical assessment and includes internationally recognized leaders in developing and evaluating IRT/CAT assessment instruments. The PEDI- Hospital will meet a critical need in hospital care for children and is strongly anticipated to be commercially successful. Achieving the identified aims in this proposed Phase I STTR will provide proof of concept and establish the foundation for Phase II where the end-use product of this STTR project will be a marketable PEDI-Hospital instrument for the assessment of infants, children, and youth across all 3 levels of hospital care.
The objective of this Phase I STTR is to produce final, refined item pools for development of the Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory for Hospital Use (PEDI-Hospital). This Phase I project will provide proof of concept and establish the foundation for Phase II where the end-use product will be a marketable system for the assessment of function for children birth to 21 years. The PEDI-Hospital will offer a judgement-based, clinician-report, setting-specific, feasible, efficient, and responsive measure of function for children of all ages and abilities to be used across all levels of hospital care with a link to post-discharge community assessment.
