An Integrative Review of Outcome Measures Used in Occupational Therapy Research for School-Age Children with Cerebral Palsy in Iran

Identifying the currently-used outcome measures for clients with cerebral palsy (CP) in the Iranian occupational therapy (OT) research can declare the new trend of such researchers and identify the more focused domains regarding such individuals. Accordingly, this integrative review aims to define the utilized outcome measures for school-age children with CP in the Iranian OT research.

We conducted an integrated review of online Persian and English databases, namely PubMed, Web of Science, Otseeker, Cochrane, Medline, Embase, CINAHL, PsycInfo, OVID Medline, Magiran, ISC, SID, IranMEDEX, Irandoc, and IRCT, along with the Google Scholar search engine from January 2000 to March 2021.

Out of 605 potentially relevant articles that were initially retrieved, 51 articles met the inclusion criteria, and their used outcome measure(s) was identified. A total of 42 identified outcome measure(s) were not diagnosis-specific and or child-report. A maximum of 15 tools, which assessed the motor components of CP children based on a biomedical bottom-up approach, was commonly used by the majority of studies.

Most Iranian OT studies utilized bottom-up outcome measures. Iranian OT researchers were suggested to highlight the current paradigm of OT in their research regarding school-age children with CP to comprehensively address their multiple challenges and needs according to a top-down client-centered approach.