Article Test

Backgound - There is a challenge for rehabilitation professionals for assessing urban educational and pedestrian infrastructures and leisure facilities, to ensure accessibility for wheelchair users, blind and deaf people, and older adults with and without assistive devices. The Measure of accessibility to urban infrastructures for adults with physical disabilities (MAUAP) was developed to provide professionals with an objective and exhaustive measure of accessibility of exterior and interior urban infrastructures for adults with mobility, visual and hearing impairments. After the content development and the content validation with experts, the aim of this paper is to pursue the development of that measurement tool, the MAUAP, in evaluating inter-rater reliability.

Method-  This process of developing a measurement tool in health involves an inter-reliability study which was performed by two occupational therapists. They completed 23 MAUAP evaluations of learning (educational) and leisure facilities as well as pedestrian infrastructures. Inter-rater reliability was evaluated using the Gwet’s AC1 statistic.

Results -  The MAUAP shows good inter-rater reliability indicators in all sections: parking lot, pedestrian facilities, building access from the exterior, interior manoeuvring areas, places for learning and leisure, services, and public restroom. The 133 items had AC1 values had values rating from good or excellent. Each section of the MAUAP can be used separately, according to the evaluator’s needs.

Conclusions - Overall the MAUAP is a reliable accessibility measure of urban built environments for adults with physical disabilities (mobility, visual, hearing) which can be used in order to favour clients’ participation. This measure allows the identification of consistent accessibility recommendations and has been experimented with occupational therapists; however, the results of MAUP may interest other health professionals and as other professionals involved in conception and renovation projects, such as architects, and city planners.