Use of Therapy Outcome Measures (TOMs) and Australian Therapy Outcome Measures (AusTOMs) in community physiotherapy and community occupational therapy services: a scoping review.

Purpose: Outcome measures enable benchmarking within and between services, which is essential for ensuring best practice standards. There is limited consensus regarding which outcome measures should be utilised within the community. Therefore, the aim of this scoping review is to provide an overview on the Therapy Outcome Measures (TOMs) and Australian Therapy Outcome Measures (AusTOMs) in community physiotherapy and occupational therapy services.

Methods: A Scoping review was conducted as per PRISMA guidance. CINAHL, MEDLINE, EMBASE, EMCARE and PubMed were searched and articles were screened based on pre-defined criteria. The results were themed for reporting.

Results: Thirteen studies were included. Article themes were sensitivity, validity and reliability of the outcome measures and the use of the TOMs/AusTOMs in community settings.

Conclusion: Both the TOMs and the AusTOMs have been shown to be potentially valid and reliable for use within community therapy services. There have been varying degrees of improvement reported using either outcome measure in different services. Future research should further investigate the specific floor and ceiling effects of both measures within the community population. In addition, comparison of TOMs data with AusTOMs data would be beneficial to determine whether one measure is more advantageous than the other in specific circumstances.