Development and Content Validity of the Clinical Assessment of Body Alignment for Children With Cerebral Palsy

The purpose of this study is to describe the development and content validity of the clinical assessment of body alignment (CABA) to measure body alignment in children with cerebral palsy.

Content validity and clinical utility were examined through expert opinion of 283 pediatric physical therapists. Participants reviewed items as matching or not to the domain of body alignment. Clinical utility was evaluated on a 5-point scale. Means and standard deviation were calculated for each attribute. Fleiss' kappa examined interrater reliability of expert responses.

Percentage agreement was high for 19 items and good for 1 item. Clinicians' ratings showed overall fair to good agreement. Four clinical utility attributes had a net importance score of more than 90%, although interrater reliability was low.

Content validity of the CABA was supported. Construct validity, reliability, and responsiveness require further study. What this adds to the evidence: The CABA has potential to offer clinicians and researchers a clinically practical measure of postural alignment for children with cerebral palsy. Preliminary investigation of CABA shows good content validity. However, more studies to assess the assessments' psychometrics including construct validity, reliability, and responsiveness are required.