Agreement in activities of daily living performance after stroke in a postal questionnaire and interview of community-living persons

To compare assessments of activities of daily living (ADL) made in a postal questionnaire and an interview. Comparative study of a convenience sample. Results in 36 persons with stroke > 10 years previously. Data on ADL were gathered in a self-administered postal questionnaire followed by a semi-structured interview (within 1-2 weeks) using items in the Functional Independence Measure, combined with instrumental items, Instrumental Activity Measure or the ADL taxonomy (personal and instrumental items). There was generally moderate to good agreement between the postal questionnaire and the interview. Other dependence identified was reported during the interviews. Although the operational descriptions of the items varied between the ADL indices, they primarily identified ADL independence in the same persons. The use of a self administrated postal ADL questionnaire was feasible for studying ADL performance. However, in some persons, interviews may be needed to complement the results.