A therapist-administered self-report version of the Walking Index for Spinal Cord Injury II (WISCI): a psychometric...

To develop a self-report version of the Walking Index for Spinal Cord Injury II (WISCI II) and to test its reliability and validity.

Psychometric study.

Spinal cord injury (SCI) rehabilitation centres in Australia and Italy.

Eighty people with SCI were recruited from a sample of convenience.

Two self-report versions of the WISCI II were developed. Both versions were administered in English at the Australian site, and in Italian at the Italian site through an online platform. The format of the first self-report version (SR-V1) was similar to the original face-to-face WISCI II. The second self-report version (SR-V2) had more questions, but each question required participants to focus on one aspect of walking at a time. Participants completed SR-V1 and SR-V2 with assistance from research physiotherapists on two separate occasions, three to seven days apart. The original WISCI II was then administered through a face-to-face assessment by an independent physiotherapist. The intra-rater reliability and validity of SR-V1 and SR-V2 were determined with intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) and percent close agreements.

The data from the Australian and Italian sites were pooled. The validity and reliability of the two self-report versions were very similar, with SR-V2 performing slightly better than SR-V1. The ICC (95% confidence interval) of SR-V2 was 0.87 (0.81-0.92). The ICC reflecting the agreement between the self-report and the face-to-face WISCI was 0.89 (0.84-0.93).

Both versions of the self-report WISCI II provide a reasonable substitute for a face-to-face assessment although therapists preferred SR-V2.