Linking youths’ mental, psychosocial, and emotional functioning to ICF-CY: lessons learned
Frida Lygnegård, PhD Student of Disability Studies, School of Health and Welfare in Jönköping, published an article in May in the journal of Disability and Rehabilitation in collaboration with Lilly Augustine, Mats Granlund and Margareta Adolfsson.
Frida Lygnegård
Linking ready-made questionnaires to codes within the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, Children and Youth Version with the intention of using the information statistically for studying mental health problems can pose several challenges. Many of the constructs measured are latent, and therefore, difficult to describe in single codes. The aim of thisstudy was to describe and discuss challenges encountered in this coding process.
A questionnaire from a Swedish research programme was linked to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, Children and Youth Version and the agreement was assessed. Results: Including the original aim of the questionnaire into the coding process was found to be very important for managing the coding of the latent constructs of the items. Items from the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, Children and Youth Version chapters with narrow definitions for example mental functions, were more easily translated to meaningful concepts to code, while broadly defined chapters, such as interactions and relationships, were more difficult.
This study stresses the importance of a clear, predefined coding scheme as well as the importance of not relying too heavily on common linking rules, especially in cases when it is not possible to use multiple codes for a single item
