SCIM III is reliable and valid in a separate analysis for traumatic spinal cord lesions

• Published in: Spinal cord 2011-02, Vol.49 (2), p.292-296
• Main Authors: Bluvshtein, V, Front, L, Itzkovich, M, Aidinoff, E, Gelernter, I, Hart, J, Biering-Soerensen, F, Weeks, C, Laramee, M T, Craven, C, Hitzig, S L, Glaser, E, Zeilig, G, Aito, S, Scivoletto, G, Mecci, M, Chadwick, R J, Masry, W S El, Osman, A, Glass, C A, Silva, P, Soni, B M, Gardner, B P, Savic, G, Bergström, E M, Catz, A
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 631/378/1687/1825; 706/689/477; Activities of Daily Living - classification; Adult; Anatomy; Biological and medical sciences; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; Cerebrospinal fluid. Meninges. Spinal cord; Cohort Studies; Disability Evaluation; Female; Human Physiology; Humans; Independent Living - standards; Injuries of the nervous system and the skull. Diseases due to physical agents; Male; Medical sciences; Middle Aged; Nervous system (semeiology, syndromes); Neurochemistry; Neurology; Neuropsychology; Neurosciences; original-article; Outcome Assessment (Health Care) - methods; Spinal Cord Injuries - diagnosis; Spinal Cord Injuries - rehabilitation; Surveys and Questionnaires - standards; Traumas. Diseases due to physical agents; Young Adult
• ISSN: 1362-4393; 1476-5624
• DOI: 10.1038/sc.2010.111

Study design: A multi-center international cohort study. Objective: To evaluate the reliability and validity of the third version of the Spinal Cord Independence Measure (SCIM III), separately for patients with traumatic spinal cord lesions (SCLs). Setting: A total of 13 spinal cord units in six countries from North America, Europe and the Middle-East. Methods: SCIM III and Functional Independence Measure (FIM) were assessed for 261 patients with traumatic SCLs, on admission to rehabilitation and before discharge, by two raters. Conventional statistical measures were used to evaluate the SCIM III reliability and validity. Results: In almost all SCIM III tasks, the total agreement between the paired raters was >80%. The κ coefficients were all >0.6 and statistically significant. Pearson's coefficients of the correlations between the paired raters were >0.9, the mean differences between raters were nonsignificant and the intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) were ⩾0.95. Cronbach's α values for the entire SCIM III scale were 0.833–0.835. FIM and SCIM III total scores were correlated ( r =0.84, P