Cultural adaptation and reliability of the Turkish version of the Children's Assessment of Participation with Hands scale in children with physical disabilities.

Background: The 'Children's Assessment of Participation with Hands (CAP-H)' scale is a parent report questionnaire that can be used to measure participation in life situations that require hand use for children with disabilities. The aim of this study was to examine the reliability of a Turkish version of the CAP-H scale in order to evaluate the hand participation of children with physical disabilities and compare them with typically developing children.

Methods: Evaluation was made of a total of 182 physically disabled children (8.53±3.94 years) and 90 typically developing children (9.40±3.04 years). The CAP-H scale was used to evaluate children's hand participation, compare with typically developing children and to examine the reliability of the Turkish version. Cronbach's alpha and intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) were evaluated for internal consistency and test-retest reliability, respectively.

Results: Cronbach's alpha value used for all subscores was found to be excellent in all domains for internal consistency (Cronbach's α: 0.84-1). According to the test-retest reliability, it was found to be perfectly reliable in all domains (ICC: 0.81-1). There was a significant difference in all items of CAP-H (p=0.00) except for participation in self-care, frequency of recreational activities and frequency of educational domain in favour of typically developing children.

Conclusions: The results of this study demonstrated that the Turkish translation of CAP-H is a reliable evaluation for children's participation in life requiring hand use. In addition, hand participation of children with physical disabilities is lower compared with typically developing children.