Responsiveness and concurrent validity of the revised Capabilities of Upper Extremity-Questionnaire (CUE-Q) in patients with acute tetraplegia

• Published in: Spinal cord 2014-08, Vol.52 (8), p.625-628
• Main Authors: Oleson, C V, Marino, R J
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 692/308/409; Adult; Anatomy; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; Disability Evaluation; Female; Human Physiology; Humans; Independent Living; Longitudinal Studies; Male; Middle Aged; Motor Skills; Neurochemistry; Neuropsychology; Neurosciences; original-article; Quadriplegia - diagnosis; Quadriplegia - etiology; Recovery of Function; Reproducibility of Results; Self Care; Spinal Cord Injuries - complications; Statistics, Nonparametric; Surveys and Questionnaires; Upper Extremity - physiopathology; Young Adult
• ISSN: 1362-4393; 1476-5624
• DOI: 10.1038/sc.2014.77

Study design: This is a longitudinal convenience sample. Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate the responsiveness of the revised Capabilities of Upper Extremity-Questionnaire (CUE-Q), in which the item responses were reduced from seven to five levels, relative to the upper extremity motor score (UEMS) and to the self-care subscale of Functional Independence Measure (FIMsc). Methods: A total of 46 subjects with acute traumatic tetraplegia, 19 motor complete, 27 motor incomplete, completed the revised CUE-Q, UEMS and FIMsc at admission and discharge from rehabilitation. Results: Subjects were mostly male ( n =42) and Caucasian ( n =27). The mean age was 44±21 years. Predominant etiologies were falls ( n =18) and motor vehicle accidents ( n =17). During rehabilitation, mean CUE-Q scores increased from 49.8±30.8 to 73.7±36.3, UEMS increased from 19.6±11.9 to 26.3±13.4, and FIMsc increased from 9.8±5.1 to 21.5±9.7. At admission and discharge, CUE scores had excellent to good Spearman correlations ( r s ) with UEMS ( r s =0.89, 0.70) and FIMsc ( r s =0.73, 0.80), but change scores had little to moderate correlations (CUE-UEMS, r s =0.07; CUE-FIMsc, r s =0.51), suggesting that the CUE, UEMS and FIM measure related but different constructs. Effect size of the change score was 0.92 for CUE-Q, 0.87 for UEMS and 1.38 for FIMsc. This compares to an effect size of 0.73 for the original 7-level response CUE-Q. Conclusion: The simplified response set of the CUE-Q maintains the responsiveness of the original version, whereas it increases the ease of use for the patient.