Abstract
Objective
To assess the reliability of the Test of Wheeled Mobility (TOWM) and the Wheelie test.
Design
Cohort study.
Setting
Gymnasium.
Participants
Manual wheelchair users (N=30, age 23–53y) with a spinal cord injury.
Intervention
Participants performed the 30 skills of the TOWM and the 8 skills of the Wheelie test
twice. Ability, time, and anxiety scores were assessed on field. Quality scores were
assessed by video analysis.
Main Outcome Measures
Test-retest reliability was evaluated for the ability, time, anxiety, and quality
scores of both tests. Intrarater and interrater reliability were determined on the
basis of quality scores of 20 participants. Intraclass coefficient and nonparametric
statistics were applied, as well as standard error of measurement, method error (ME),
coefficient variation of ME, minimal detectable change (95% confidence), and technical
error of measurement.
Results
Test-retest reliability: no significant differences between t1 and t2 in the ability,
quality, and time scores, except for anxiety scores. Standard error of measurement,
ME, coefficient variation of ME, and minimal detectable change (95% confidence) values
were low for the ability and quality total score and higher for the time and anxiety
total score. Intrarater and interrater reliability interclass correlation coefficients
of both tests ranged between .91 and .99. Interrater relative technical error of measurement
for the TOWM and the Wheelie test total quality score was 3.7% and 6.3%, respectively,
and intrarater relative technical error of measurement was 4.3% and 6.1%, respectively.
Interclass correlation coefficients per individual tasks ranged between .88 and 1.00,
except for “level propulsion forward,” which showed low interclass correlation coefficient
scores (interrater: .49; intrarater: .44; test-retest: .43).
Conclusions
Based on ability and quality total scores, the TOWM and the Wheelie test are reliable
when assessing the wheeled mobility of manual wheelchair users with spinal cord injury.
The quality criteria of 1 task from the TOWM and 3 tasks from the Wheelie test need
to be refined.
Keywords
List of abbreviations:
CI (confidence interval), CVME (coefficient of variation of method error), ICC (interclass correlation coefficient), MDC (minimal detectable change), MDC95 (minimal detectable change (95% confidence)), ME (method error), SCI (spinal cord injury), TEM (technical error of measurement), TOWM (Test of Wheeled Mobility), WM (wheeled mobility)To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: October 08, 2012
Footnotes
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.
Identification
Copyright
© 2013 American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
