Utilization of the Bay Area Functional Performance Evaluation with an Adolescent Psychiatric Population

Abstract

A pilot project to evaluate the usefulness of the Bay Area Functional Performance Evaluation (BaFPE) for the adolescent population utilized the assessment results of 48 adolescent psychiatric inpatients over a 30 month period. Scores on the TOA and SIS components of the BaFPE were compared to norms achieved on the original San Francisco adult standardization sample. The TOA was significantly correlated with severity of diagnosis and SIS scores were negatively correlated with length of stay on the adolescent unit. The results also showed that the BaFPE is sensitive to age as older adolescents scored significantly higher on both the TOA and SIS components. The results suggest that the BaFPE, although originally intended for the adult population, may be successfully employed when working with the adolescent population. Furthermore, the BaFPE provides value in identifying adolescents' problem areas thus allowing for appropriate occupational therapy intervention.