Reliability and concurrent validity of the hospital mobility scale in acute stroke patients

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: The Hospital Mobility Scale (HMS) evaluates the mobility of stroke patients in the hospital environment and in a previous study showed its inter-examiner agreement, predictive validity and responsiveness to changes in the acute phase. OBJECTIVE: to evaluate the concurrent validity of HMS and its reliability when applied by interview. METHODS: This is a validation study, that was developed with patients admitted in a stroke unit, in the city of Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. In order to assess the concurrent validity of the HMS, we compared its score with the modified Rankin Scale (mRS) score by using the spearman test. The same researcher applied both scales on the fifth day after stroke. To assess the reliability of HMS when applied by interview, two examiners applied the scale in different shifts, on the same day. The first evaluation was face-to-face and the second was performed by interview. For this analysis, we used the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). RESULTS: The HMS showed a very strong positive correlation with the mRS (r = 0.90) and a significant correlation was also found between the sub-items of the HMS and the mRS.  We found excellent inter-examiner agreement between face-to-face and interview assessment (ICC> 0.90). CONCLUSION: The hospital mobility scale, that was developed specifically for stroke patients, showed a high degree of concurrent validity and was reliable when applied by interview.