Client Goals Project
Description
Analysis of the content and themes of the rehabilitation goals of people with acquired brain injury within community rehabilitation
Rationale
Few mechanisms exist for the systematic evaluation of client goals in community rehabilitation
A structured goal analysis method would be an effective index of quality for community rehabilitation services and should be able to identify and track organisational differences
Participants
Clients with acquired brain injury from two community rehabilitation services
Key Features
Development of a taxonomy of goals that will facilitate benchmarking and comparison across community rehabilitation services for people with acquired brain injury
Examination of the effectiveness of the developed taxonomy for identifying organisational differences across similar community rehabilitation services
Funding
Externally funded with the support of the Princess Alexandra Hospital Research Foundation
Conducted in association with the Occupational Therapy Department at the University of Queensland and the Brain Injury Rehabilitation Unit, Liverpool Health Service, Sydney
Research / Evaluation Strategies
Phase 1 of the study involved the structured content and thematic analysis of 1765 rehabilitation goals identified by clients within the Acquired Brain Injury Outreach Service
Phase 2 involved the structured content and thematic analysis of 400 rehabilitation goals identified by clients of the Liverpool Community Outreach Service and cross-organisational comparison of 100 goal statements randomly drawn from both services
Outputs and Outcomes
The taxonomy developed during Phase 1 of the study consisted of 21 categories of goal statements relevant to community rehabilitation of people with acquired brain injury. The taxonomy demonstrated good inter-rater reliability and was able to discriminate across goal statements.
Application of the taxonomy within a different service context demonstrated that inter-rater reliability remained high. The taxonomy could track changes in goals identified within a service undergoing organisational change as well as tracking organisational differences between two similar services.
Publications
Kuipers, P., Foster, M., Carlson, G., & Moy, J. (2003). Classifying client goals in community-based ABI rehabilitation: a taxonomy for profiling service delivery and conceptualising outcomes. Disability and Rehabilitation, 25(3), 154-162.
Simpson, G., Foster, M., Kuipers, P., Kendall, M., & Hanna, J. (2005). An organisational perspective on goal setting in community-based brain injury rehabilitation. Disability and Rehabilitation, 27(15), 901-910.
Return to ABIOS Research and Development