Content validity of the extended International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health core set for stroke

Abstract

The extended International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) core set for stroke is an assessment tool for describing stroke-related health. It was applied to rehabilitation settings in a number of countriesbut there was no a report of its systematic use in Thailand. Before this core set could be used with Thai population, there was a need to investigate its quality of measurement. This study aimed to evaluate content validity of the extended ICF core set for stroke in Thai population. Participants were 43 persons with stroke (27 males and 16 females, mean age ± SD 65.6±10.6 years) who were living in a district of Surin Province. A physical therapist filled in the core set with a universal qualifying scale ranging from 0 (no problem/facilitator/barrier) to 4 (complete problem/facilitator/barrier) or the qualifiers 8 (not specified) and 9 (not applicable). The ratings were based on information obtained through interviews with the participants and their caregivers and observations as well as routine physical therapy examinations on the participants. Content validity was analyzed by using frequency of the participants who had a problem/facilitator/barrier for individual categories. The qualifiers 1-4 were collapsed under the definition of “some problem/facilitator/barrier”. A threshold of 20% of the participants was applied to specify the content validity of the categories. The results showed that of 166 ICF categories, 107 (64.5%) were considered valid for the participants. In conclusion, most categories of the extended ICF core set for stroke had content validity when assessing in community-dwellers with stroke. However, simplification of the “environmental factors” categories should be considered in order to improve the efficient use of this core set.