The Use of the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure as an Outcome of a Pain Management Program

The last three decades have seen the emergence of measures to assess the efficacy of pain management programs. Recently there has been interest in measures that assess clients' perceptions of their own performance. The Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM) (Law et al, 1994, 1998) is an individualized measure designed for use by occupational therapists to detect a self-perceived change in occupational performance problems over time. It may be an important extra dimension to assessing the outcomes of pain management programs. The aim of this study was to ascertain the validity of the COPM as an outcome measure for the Liverpool Pain Management Program. One hundred and six clients were recruited to the study and 87 clients completed a battery of tests including the COPM at baseline, end of program and 3 month follow-up. Results of the study demonstrated that the COPM showed good evidence of concurrent criterion validity and sensitivity to change.