a meeting with Tammy & Louise

Main findings so far:
1. 99 studies met the criteria.
2. Every study used basic ADL measure as the primary or secondary outcome measure. The BI and FIM were most commonly used. 50% of the studies used the BI and 40% of the studies used the FIM. IADL (EADL) measures were employed in 21% of the studies. The NEADL and FAI were the top 2 mostly used IADL measures. 8% of the studies used the NEADL and 7% of the studies used the FAI.
3. Almost all studies rarely specified the perceptive of ADL function of each ADL measure used. About half of the studies described their ADL measures as assessing level of independence/dependence of performing ADL tasks. [However, the meaning of “independence/dependence of performing ADL tasks” is vague, because it might be “ability” or “actual performance.” ]
4. Up to 80% of the studies did not specify the mode of administration of their ADL measures. 8% of the studies used face-to-face interview; whereas 6% of the studies used performance observation. [The mode of administration is highly correlated with the perspective of ADL function assessed. For example, the “ability” of ADL is best assessed via observation on the patient’s performance on standardized contexts. The actual performance of ADL in daily life could be hardly assessed via observation because of time-consuming and patients’ bias.]

[Many thanks for Jenny's hard work on the above data preparation.]

Further tasks:
1. Developing a questionnaire for asking the authours about the perspective and mode of administration of the ADL measures used. The file has been sent to them. Their comments might be expected by the end of this year.
2. The questionnaire would be sent to the authours in the early January 2010.
3. We will search the databases again in the early January 2010. Some more studies would meet our criteria.
4. We will summarize the measures of QOL for the ADL-related domain simutaneously.
5. We will revise search strategies for searching QOL questionnaire used for RCT later in next year.