Comparing disability survey questions in five countries: a study using ICF to guide comparisons

This paper describes an international effort to compare disability survey questions using the ICF framework. The process included backcoding survey questions to ICF. To establish a meaningful basis for comparison, the original 14 functioning areas were scaled to seven: hearing, seeing speaking, mobility. body movement, gripping and personal care. The names of disability topics changed reflecting ICF definitions, for example, hearing became receiving spoken messages and gripping became fine hand use. A rigorous backcoding process resulted in a comprehensive set of survey questions with unique ICF codes. It was concluded that the question format and focus must be structured to the ICF in the survey development phase in order to achieve the best possible base for international comparability.