Assessing locomotion ability in West African stroke patients: validation of ABILOCO-Benin scale.

OBJECTIVE: To calibrate and validate the Benin version of ABILOCO, a Rasch-built scale developed to assess locomotion ability in stroke patients.

DESIGN: Prospective study and questionnaire development.

SETTING: Rehabilitation centers.

PARTICIPANTS: Stroke patients (N=230; mean age ± SD, 51.1±11.6 y; 64.3% men).

INTERVENTION: Not applicable.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Participants completed a preliminary list of 36 items including the 13 items of ABILOCO. Items were scored as "impossible," "difficult," or "easy." The mobility subdomain of FIM (FIM-mobility), the Functional Ambulation Classification (FAC), the 6-minute walk test (6MWT), and the 10-meter walk test (10MWT) were used to evaluate and elucidate the validity of the ABILOCO-Benin scale.

RESULTS: Successive Rasch analyses led to the selection of 15 items that define a unidimensional, invariant, and linear measure of locomotion ability in stroke patients. This modified version of the ABILOCO scale, named ABILOCO-Benin, showed an excellent internal consistency, with a Person Separation Index of .93, and excellent test-retest reliability with high intraclass correlation coefficients of .95 (P<.001) for item difficulty and .93 (P<.001) for subject measures. It also presented good construct validity compared with FAC, FIM-mobility, 6MWT, and 10MWT (r≥.75, P<.001).

CONCLUSIONS: ABILOCO-Benin presents good psychometric properties. It allows valid, reliable, and objective measurements of locomotion ability in stroke patients.