Diagnostic of participation limitations in Stress Urinary Incontinence. The german Translation of the PRAFAB Questionnaire. - PRAFAB

One of the instruments used by physiotherapists, but also in multi-professional teams, can be the originally Dutch PRAFAB questionnaire to objectify participation restrictions in people with urinary incontinence. The need for short, economical, practical PRO-Assessments to record the limitations and supporting factors of people with incontinence is explained in detail in the literature. The Dutch-German translation of the PRAFAB questionnaire shows a successful cultural adaptation to German language usage and gives indications of construct and content validity that is just as good as that of the original instrument. The comprehensibility and conceptual equivalence of the German translation could be proven in the cognitive debriefing, so that the instrument is prepared for transfer in a final version. The good results of the pretest are probably based on the strong compactness and simplicity of the instrument, on the other hand certainly also on the clear profile of the potential limitations of the target group and last but not least on the professional composition and the results of the work of the translator team. The functioning of the entire instrument in realistic conditions, the handling and filter management must be checked in the next step using pre-test procedures. Further aspects of the entire questionnaire handling and possible side effects of the specific setting can be examined and evaluated via behavior coding connected to the previous process and other debriefing techniques, especially the interviewer. Furthermore, the ICF linking carried out for the PRAFAB questionnaire shows a high linkage to the ICF components "body functions", "activities and participation" and "environmental factors" in 3 out of 5 items. Two of these items alone consider the “environmental factors” component, which is not represented in many instruments, and thus represent significant added value when considering restrictions on participation. According to the current state of research, it does not seem possible to objectify participation without considering relevant environmental factors. The strong linking of the responses of the test persons in the cognitive test of item 4 of the instrument with the corresponding categories and domains of the ICF component "activities and participation" further shows a very clear relationship of the variables of this item to the ICF. Since aspects of "satisfaction" and "importance" are recorded with 2 items, the instrument uses 4 of 5 of the dimensions listed by Farin (2011) for recording participation. After validation through psychometric testing, the PRAFAB questionnaire in German-speaking countries offers the possibility of providing a simple, economical, participation-objectifying instrument for physiotherapeutic, but also multi-professional diagnostics and making a contribution to the objectification of participation restrictions in people with urinary incontinence.