Cross-cultural validation and psychometric evaluation of the Participation and Environment Measure for Children and Youth in Korea

Purpose: To develop the Korean version of the Participation and Environment Measure for Children and Youth (KPEM-CY) and examine its psychometric properties.

Method: The PEM-CY was cross-culturally translated into Korean using a specific guideline: pre-review of participation items, forward/backward translation, expert committee review, pre-test of the KPEM-CY and final review. To establish internal consistency, test–retest reliability and construct validity of the KPEM-CY, 80 parents of children with disabilities aged 5–13 years were recruited in South Korea.

Results: Across the home, school and community settings, 76% of participation items and 29% of environment items were revised to improve their fit with Korean culture. Internal consistency was moderate to excellent (0.67–0.92) for different summary scores. Test–retest reliability was excellent (>0.75) in the summary scores of participation frequency and extent of involvement across the three settings and moderate to excellent (0.53–0.95) in all summary scores at home. Child’s age, type of school and annual income were the factors that significantly influenced specific dimensions of participation and environment across all settings.

Conclusions: Results indicated that the KPEM-CY is equivalent to the original PEM-CY and has initial evidence of reliability and validity for use with Korean children with disabilities.

• Implications for rehabilitation

• Because ‘participation’ is a key outcome of the rehabilitation, measuring comprehensive participation of children with disabilities is necessary.

• The PEM-CY is a parent-report survey measure to assess comprehensive participation of children and youth and environment, which affect their participation, at home, school and in the community.

• A cross-cultural adaptation process is mandatory to adapt the measurement tool to a new culture or country.

• The Korean PEM-CY has both reliability and validity and can therefore generate useful clinical data for Korean children with disabilities.