Rehabilitation Success: The Interrelationships of Multiple Criteria

Abstract

Human service organizations assert that individuals succeed or fail in the change process. What are the criteria of this success? When multiple criteria of success are employed, does success on one criterion imply success on another? These questions are examined with over time data on 122 patients from two physical rehabilitation centers using a partial correlation approach to change scores. Findings reveal that evaluation of rehabilitation success involves the establishment of multiple criteria. The correlations of the various criteria of rehabilitation success depend on the variables and indicators used. Multiple indicators of physical functioning intercorrelate well but are only moderately related to judges' assessments of social functioning and are even less related to self-administered indicators of social functioning. Further, cooperation and completion of services do not seem to be related to improvement in physical or socialfunctioning. Despite this complexity, staff give individuals a single label of success or failure which masks the complexity of the evaluation process.