Further Development of the Body Awareness Rating Scale (BARS) - Movement Quality Score (MQ) and Experience

Project summary

Body Awareness Rating Scale (BARS) was developed in the late 1980s as a physiotherapeutic assessment tool for patients suffering from long-lasting musculoskeletal disorders and mental health problems. It consist of two parts: (1) observation and scoring of movement quality based on 12 movements and (2) interview with the patient about the immediately movement awareness described by patients after exploring each of the movements.  A first study of reliability and validity of scroing the movement quality is done. BARS is further integrated in a PhD project, a larger RCT study on Hip-OA patients.  

This project include three MSc projects with three different focus made in order to further elaborate BARS as a clinical assessment tool within physiotherapy. The three are : 1) "How we move, influence how we sense - A systematic review of publications about experiences on how movement awareness influences musculoskeletal pain", 2) "Learning to observe movement quality in BARS - a cross sectional longitudinell mixed methods study" and 3) "Use of the assessment tool Body Awareness Rating Scale (BARS) in adults suffering from Scoliosis". Study design, research methodology and methods are accordingly chosen in line with each of the three studies and their research questions. The three MSc projects are connected to the BBAM studyprogram at HiB. It is made in order to strengthen the BARS-MQ as a reliable and valide assesment tool.       

Method

The three MSc projects have diferent desgin and research methodology and methods. Project 1 is a systematic review; project 2 is a Cross Sectional Longitudinal Mixed Method; project 3 has an quantitative appraoch to the data material.