Psychometric Properties of the Toileting Behaviour Evaluation (TBE) Using Rasch Analysis.

Area of Science:

• Rehabilitation Medicine
• Occupational Therapy
• Psychometrics

Background:

• Traditional assessments like the Functional Independence Measure and Barthel Index have limitations in evaluating complex toileting activities.
• Wheelchair users require specialized tools to accurately measure toileting behaviors.
• The Toileting Behaviour Evaluation (TBE) was developed to address these assessment gaps.

Purpose of the Study:

• To psychometrically evaluate the Toileting Behaviour Evaluation (TBE) among wheelchair users.
• To determine the internal validity, reliability, and unidimensionality of the TBE.
• To develop a conversion table for transforming TBE scores into interval measures.

Main Methods:

• Rasch analysis was employed to assess the TBE's psychometric properties.
• The study included 250 wheelchair users from six rehabilitation hospitals in Japan.
• The TBE's 22 toileting components were analyzed for model fit.

Main Results:

• The TBE demonstrated a good fit to the Rasch model (raw variance explained by measures = 70.1%).
• High reliability was confirmed with a person separation index of 3.82 (Cronbach's alpha=0.94) and an item separation index of 5.94 (Cronbach's alpha=0.97).
• A conversion table was created to enhance the clinical applicability of TBE scores.

Conclusions:

• The Toileting Behaviour Evaluation (TBE) is a psychometrically sound and reliable instrument for assessing toileting behavior in wheelchair users.
• The TBE offers improved clinical applicability through score conversion.
• Further research is recommended to validate the TBE in diverse populations and clinical intervention settings.