Reliabilty and Validity of the Craig Handicap Assessment and Reporting Technique for Japanese Individuals with Spinal Cord Injury
FUSAE TOZATO, YOSHIKO TOBIMATSU,1 CHIH-WEN WANG, TSUTOMU IWAYA,2 KEIGO KUMAMOTO3 and TAKEHISA USHIYAMA4
Faculty of Medical Science and Welfare Tohoku Bunka Gakuen University, Sendai, 1Health Sciences Major, Graduate School of Health Sciences, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, 2Training Center, National Rehabilitation Center for Persons with Disabilities, Tokorozawa, 3Research Unit for Nursing, Caring Sciences and Psychology National Institute for Longevity Sciences, Obu, and 4National Rehabilitation Center for Persons with Disabilities, Tokorozawa, Japan
It is necessary and important to quantify the handicap sustained by individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI); however, few instruments are available to measure the level of the disability. One of the best developed and most often used measures is the Craig Handicap Assessment and Reporting Technique (CHART). Nevertheless, a Japanese version has not yet been developed and tested for SCI individuals. The purpose of this study was to develop a Japanese version of the CHART (CHART-J) and to investigate its test-retest reliability and discriminant validity in SCI in Japan. Fifty-four individuals with SCI participated in the test-retest reliability study and 293 participated in the discriminant validity analysis. We have shown that the test-retest reliability coefficients of the CHART-J range from 0.57 to 1.00. In addition, its discriminant validity is acceptable for individuals with SCI in Japan. Therefore, the CHART-J is useful as a measure of disability for Japanese individuals with SCI.
keywords —— CHART-J; test-retest reliability; discriminant validity; spinal cord injury
© 2005 Tohoku University Medical Press
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Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 2005, 205, 357-366
Correspondence: Fusae Tozato, Faculty of Medical Science and Welfare, Tohoku Bunka Gakuen University, Sendai 981-8551, Japan.
e-mail: lyra77@r6.dion.ne.jp