Client-Oriented Role Evaluation (CORE): the development of a clinical rehabilitation instrument to assess role change associated with disability.

This paper describes the development of an instrument, the Client-Oriented Role Evaluation (CORE), to help meet the needs of rehabilitation clients and clinicians in their joint efforts to define realistic and meaningful therapeutic goals. The CORE is based on a model that captures the relationship among identity, roles, constituent occupations, and personal and environmental determinants. The model encourages a comprehensive approach to examining role change and role loss that occurs with disability. The instrument consists of a series of steps in which role changes are identified, role values are assigned, and satisfaction with role performance is rated at different points in time across the rehabilitation process. A description of the CORE development is presented along with preliminary data from clients involved in a chronic pain rehabilitation program.