Reliability and minimal detectable change of the Trunk Assessment Scale for Spinal Cord Injury (TASS) and the trunk control test for individuals with spinal cord injury

This study assessed the reliability of two trunk function tests, the Trunk Assessment Scale for Spinal Cord Injury (TASS) and the trunk control test (TCT-SCI), for people with spinal cord injury (SCI). Reliability refers to how consistently these tests measure trunk function. The researchers used video recordings of individuals with SCI performing the tests, and two physical therapists independently scored the videos. This helped determine how well the therapists agreed on the scores, which is a measure of inter-rater reliability. The study also calculated the minimal detectable change (MDC) for each test. The MDC represents the smallest change in score that is considered a real change in trunk function, rather than just a measurement error.

• 1
  Both the TASS and TCT-SCI showed excellent inter-rater reliability, meaning that different therapists were likely to give similar scores. The ICC for TASS was 0.99 and for TCT-SCI it was 1.00.
• 2
  The minimal detectable change (MDC) for the TASS total score was 4.07 points, while the MDC for the TCT-SCI total score was 1.13 points. This means that changes less than these values may be due to measurement error.
• 3
  One item on each scale (TASS item 6 and TCT-SCI item 3) had lower inter-rater agreement than the other items. The kappa coefficients of TASS was below acceptable for 1 item (κ = 0.62) and The kappa coefficients of TCT-SCI was below acceptable for 1 item (κ = 0.68)