Abstract
Study design
Psychometrics study.
Objective
The objective of this study was to develop an Italian version of the Spinal Cord Injury-Falls Concern Scale (SCI-FCS) and examine its reliability and validity.
Setting
Multicenter study in spinal units in Northern and Southern Italy. The scale also was administered to non-hospitalized outpatient clinic patients.
Methods
The original scale was translated from English to Italian using the “Translation and Cultural Adaptation of Patient-Reported Outcomes Measures” guidelines. The reliability and validity of the culturally adapted scale were assessed following the “Consensus-Based Standards for the Selection of Health Status Measurement Instruments” checklist. The SCI-FCS-I internal consistency, inter-rater, and intra-rater reliability were examined using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient and the intraclass correlation coefficient, respectively. Concurrent validity was evaluated using Pearson’s correlation coefficient with the Italian version of the short form of the Wheelchair Use Confidence Scale for Manual Wheelchair Users (WheelCon-M-I-short form).
Results
The Italian version of the SCI-FCS-I was administered to 124 participants from 1 June to 30 September 2017. The mean ± SD of the SCI-FCS-I score was 16.73 ± 5.88. All SCI-FCS items were either identical or similar in meaning to the original version’s items. Cronbach’s α was 0.827 (p < 0.01), the inter-rater reliability was 0.972 (p < 0.01), and the intra-rater reliability was 0.973 (p < 0.01). Pearson’s correlation coefficient of the SCI-FCS-I scores with the WheelCon-M-I-short form was 0.56 (p < 0.01).
Conclusions
The SCI-FCS-I was found to be reliable and a valid outcome measure for assessing manual wheelchair concerns about falling in the Italian population.
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Acknowledgements
We acknowledge those who participated in the surveys; their collective expertise greatly informed the development of the Italian version of the SCI-FCS. We also acknowledge G Scivoletto MD; MC Pagliacci MD; T Bianconi, FT; A Nobile, FT; D Guarino, OT; ML Giordano, OT; R Zito, OT.
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Marquez, M.A., De Santis, R., Ammendola, V. et al. Cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the “Spinal Cord Injury-Falls Concern Scale” in the Italian population. Spinal Cord 56, 712–718 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41393-018-0070-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41393-018-0070-6

