Simultaneous development and implementation of the children's rehabilitation activities profile: a communication instrument for pediatric rehabilitation.

Purpose: To describe the methods used for the development and implementation of the Rehabilitation Activities Profile for Children (Children's RAP), an instrument to structure information for team conferences.

Methods: Our strategy consisted of nine steps: (1) survey in clinical practice; (2) literature search; (3) formation of a national study group; (4) development of specifications and a national draft; (5) development of local drafts; (6) integration of local drafts; (7) consultation of users and experts; (8) national conference; and (9) assessment of user experience.

Results: The final version of the Children's RAP consists of three sections: (1) basic information about the child and its proxies; (2) present situation and needs of the child and its proxies; and (3) conclusions of the team conference. User satisfaction ranged from adequate to good. The Children's RAP is currently used in 53% of the Dutch pediatric rehabilitation centres.

Conclusion: The methods used guarantee an optimal involvement of users, experts and literature. With these methods it was possible to develop an instrument which is widely accepted and implemented in clinical practice.