CHART Frequently Asked Questions

At times there may be some difficulty interpreting a CHART question response. The following guidelines are provided to assist you in making decisions regarding which values to assign to apparently ambiguous responses. The number of each guideline refers to the number of the CHART question. For those CHART questions which are unlikely to have questionable interpretations, no specific guidelines have been provided.

If you come up with responses that don't seem to be adequately addressed by the guidelines and conventions listed below, please contact the CHART designers to discuss your problems and questions. These issues and their responses will be shared with all CHART users in order to ensure uniform scoring.

Item 1. If a person has a disability that would typically result in a high level of dependency, and indicates no attendant care is used, probe this a bit further. The respondent may not understand that assistance with dressing, grooming, bowel and bladder care, etc. is to be considered attendant care.

If an individual has various hours of assistance on different days of the week, ask the respondent to average the total number of hours of assistance per week, then divide that number by 7 to come up with a daily estimate.

Item 2. Some individuals may state that they have help with regular household chores, but that may not be a change from their pre-injury status. For someone who never typically did things like ironing, grocery shopping, etc., he/she should not be penalized for not doing those activities post-injury. The key is to look for change in the level of assistance needed because of the injury.

Item 3. If a person who has only occasional help is responsible for arranging that assistance and providing at least an equal portion of the instruction, he/she should be considered the person taking responsibility for directing care.

If instructing and directing care providers is a shared responsibility between the respondent and a spouse or parent (for example), you may need to probe further to determine who assumes main responsibility.

Item 10. The responses to this question may vary according to season, weather, etc. For example, many people are out daily in the summer, but only one or two days a week in the winter. Ask the respondent to use his/her judgment, based on the climate in which he/she lives, to estimate the average number of days out per week throughout the year. Being out of the house and going somewhere means that the person leaves his/her own 'property'. Being out in the garden or yard does not qualify as 'going somewhere'.

Item 11. Any night spent away from a person's usual sleeping environment is considered a night away from home. Visiting family or friends and spending the night at someone else's house, therefore, is a night away from home.

Item 12. Independence into and out of one's home/living environment means total independence; i.e., locking, unlocking, opening, and closing doors, pushing manual wheelchair or operating motorized wheelchair (if applicable) through doorways, and going up/down ramps or steps leading into and out of the house must all be accomplished independently.

Item 13. If a person does not have independent access to ALL of the locations and items listed, the response must be coded "NO".

Items 14-17. The responses to Question #14-#17 refer to an individual using transportation outside the home. Specifically, these items refer to using cars, vans, other private vehicles and public transportation. However, in cases where a person uses a wheelchair and states that the wheelchair is the primary form of transportation outside the home (i.e., does not use a car, van, or other vehicle), the scoring remains the same.

Item 19. Respondents must be working in jobs for which they are paid in order to get points for this question. If a person is working but not getting paid, consider this voluntary activity and calculate the points based on the instructions for question #22.

Item 20. Active homemaking, parenting, housekeeping, etc. is exactly what it means. Being at home with the children at night with everyone asleep is not considered 'active' parenting. Helping children with homework, playing or supervising play, however, are active.

In addition, 'active' can imply supervising housework and food preparation. If someone is developing the household menus, arranging for housework to be done, or overseeing other individuals performing those activities, there is active involvement; therefore, count the time spent in these planning/supervising activities. However, don't credit someone with doing (for example) eight hours of yard work, if his/her only 'active' involvement was arranging and instructing the work needing to be done. This 'active' role might, in fact, take an hour, so credit for 1 hour is appropriate.

Item 21. Hours spent in active home maintenance may vary with season and with weather. Use the same logic employed in "#10" in estimating hours.

Item 22. Consider all organized volunteer work; for example, that which is associated with churches or clubs. Also consider any time 'working' with no monetary compensation.

NOTE: For questions 18-24, do not duplicate responses in categories. For example, if someone 'plays' with the children and considers it sports or exercise, as well as active parenting, that individual can only receive credit in one category. In another example, a person who gardens as a hobby may describe spending 20 hours a week in home maintenance, then states that gardening is a hobby. When in doubt, allow the respondent to choose the category which best describes an activity.

Item 27. In Questions #25-#29, remember to count the number of people contacted, not the actual number of times a person is contacted. For example, someone may talk with a particular business associate on a daily basis- that is considered one contact, not five (typical working days of the week).

Don't worry about getting exact counts of business associates, if a person indicates "lots" or "dozens" of people are contacted. Remember, this category allows for a maximum of 10 contacts.

Again, be careful that you don't double count people in different categories!

Item 31. Some respondents are unwilling to divulge information relating to their financial status. In such cases, ask if the respondent is willing to indicate a range between which the annual income falls. When providing ranges, it will be most helpful to know the family size and the poverty level. You may then ask if the income is between two amounts.

Some people may indicate there is no household income from any source. Probe this, because there must be money from somewhere, whether it is from a charitable source, government funds, other family support, or something else.

REMEMBER: A dimension score can be calculated only if ALL the questions in that dimension have been answered. A total CHART score can be calculated only if there is a score for each dimension.