Youth Engagement in Pediatric Rehabilitation: Service Providers' Perceptions in a Real-Time Study of Solution-Focused Coaching for Participation Goals

Aim: Client engagement is assumed to affect therapy outcomes. This study examined service providers' perceptions of youth engagement in solution-focused coaching sessions focusing on participation-oriented goals for youth with cerebral palsy. Method: Service providers completed the Pediatric Rehabilitation Intervention Measure of Engagement-Service Provider version (PRIME-SP) at the end of each session of the brief solution-focused coaching intervention (3-5 sessions) for 10 youth. Results: Youth engagement was high yet fluctuated over the sessions. Service providers noted a range of components of engagement/disengagement (affective, cognitive, and behavioral) and related factors, including client states, components of behavior change (success or nonsuccess between therapy sessions, and pleasure with success), and service provider strategies. Four preliminary patterns involving engagement, client-reported success, and goal difficulty (personally achievable or dependent on others) appeared to be meaningfully related to quantitative measures of youth outcomes. Conclusions: The study provides insights into the highly engaging nature of solution-focused coaching and the relational, co-constructed nature of the therapeutic interaction. The study indicates the utility of the PRIME-SP as a tool for recording observations of components of engagement and related factors that may be useful for clinical decisions about the use of engagement strategies and for general reflections on practice.