Abstract
Jette AM, Tulsky DS, Ni P, Kisala PA, Slavin MD, Dijkers MP, Heinemann AW, Tate DG,
Whiteneck G, Charlifue S, Houlihan B, Williams S, Kirshblum S, Dyson-Hudson T, Zanca
J, Fyffe D. Development and initial evaluation of the Spinal Cord Injury-Functional
Index.
Objectives
To describe the calibration of the Spinal Cord Injury-Functional Index (SCI-FI) and
report on the initial psychometric evaluation of the SCI-FI scales in each content
domain.
Design
Cross-sectional survey followed by calibration data simulations.
Setting
Inpatient and community settings.
Participants
A sample of participants (N=855) with traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) recruited
from 6 SCI Model Systems and stratified by diagnosis, severity, and time since injury.
Interventions
None.
Main Outcome Measure
SCI-FI instrument.
Results
Item response theory analyses confirmed the unidimensionality of 5 SCI-FI scales:
basic mobility (54 items), fine motor function (36 items), self-care (90 items), ambulation
(39 items), and wheelchair mobility (56 items). All SCI-FI scales revealed strong
psychometric properties. High correlations of scores on simulated computer adaptive
testing (CAT) with the overall SCI-FI domain scores indicated excellent potential
for CAT to accurately characterize functional profiles of adults with SCI. Overall,
there was very little loss of measurement reliability or precision using CAT compared
with the full item bank; however, there was some loss of reliability and precision
at the lower and upper ranges of each scale, corresponding to regions where there
were few questions in the item banks.
Conclusions
Initial evaluation revealed that the SCI-FI achieved considerable breadth of coverage
in each content domain and demonstrated acceptable psychometric properties. The use
of CAT to administer the SCI-FI will minimize assessment burden, while allowing for
the comprehensive assessment of the functional abilities of adults with SCI.
Key Words
List of Abbreviations:
AIS (American Spinal Injury Association Impairment Scale), CAT (computer adaptive testing), DIF (differential item functioning), ICF (International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health), IRT (item response theory), SCI (spinal cord injury), SCI-FI (Spinal Cord Injury-Functional Index)To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: May 21, 2012
Footnotes
Supported by the U.S. Department of Education, National Institute of Disability and Rehabilitation Research (grant nos. H133N060022, H133N060024, H133N060014, H133N060005, H133N060027, and H133N060032).
No commercial party having a direct financial interest in the results of the research supporting this article has or will confer a benefit on the authors or on any organization with which the authors are associated.
In-press corrected proof published online on Jul 30, 2012, at www.archives-pmr.org.
Identification
Copyright
© 2012 American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
