The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) is the international standard for describing functioning and disability. In line with the World Health Organization’s (WHO) definition of health, the ICF received approval from all 191 World Health Organization (WHO) member states during the 54th World Health Assembly on May 22, 2001 (resolution WHA 54.21). The ICF is maintained by the World Health Organization (WHO).
The ICF complements WHO’s International Classification of Diseases (ICD), which contains information on diagnosis and health condition, but not on functional status. The ICD and ICF constitute the core classifications in the WHO Family of International Classifications (WHO-FIC). ICF serves as the reference system for measuring functioning and disability at both individual and population levels.
Patients with chronic pain often experience a deterioration in the quality of life (QoL).8 The ICF can be applied in assessing a person’s health and functioning status, in documenting the assessment results, in goal-setting, in monitoring the progress of interventions and in re-evaluating the outcome of interventions in terms of functioning status.
Do you want to know more about the ICD-11 and ICF?
Then you can read the attached flyers, which offer background information on both.
Further Information can be found on the following links:
– ICD-11 Flyer and background information
– Official ICD-11 website of the World Health Organization (WHO)
– Press release: IASP Task Force for the Classification of Chronic Pain in ICD-11
– Pilot field testing of the chronic pain classification for ICD-11
– ICF at the World Health Organisation (WHO) website
– ICF e-Learning Tool