Cross-cultural Adaptation, Validity, and Reliability of the Persian Utrecht Scale for Evaluation of Rehabilitation-Participation in Spinal Cord Injury Patients

Abstract

Background: Despite participation is an important outcome of person’s rehabilitation process.there is no reliable and valid instrument for evaluation of participation in Persian-speaking spinal cord injuries (SCI). While SCI has serious damages on person’s social participation, assessment of participation demands culturally adapted and valid instruments. Objectives: This study took place to obtain a valid, reliable instrument for evaluation of Rehabilitation-Participation (P-USER-P) in an Iranian SCI. Methods: This study was methodological research, participating in 200 individuals. Analysis of face and content validity, discriminant validity, internal consistency, and reliability conducted after receiving permission and verification of the backwards-translation from the main developer. Results: During the cultural adaptation process, several modifications proposed by experts’ panel were made to ensure adaptation of items’ descriptions with Iranian culture. The Cronbach’s α and ICC coefficients of the frequency, restriction and satisfaction sub-scales were 0.61, 0.71, 0.69, and 0.75, 0.84, 0.84, respectively. The instrument also showed good reliability and discriminant validity characteristics. Conclusions: P-USER-P is a valid and reliable instrument for measuring objective and subjective participation in SCI patients. It is also adapted with Iranian culture which qualifies its utility in the rehabilitation process of Persian-speaking SCI patients.