Studies in the Falls Efficacy Scale-International for patients with cervical compressive myelopathy: Reliability, validity, and minimum clinically important difference

Patients with cervical compressive myelopathy (CCM) often experience balance problems, leading to a fear of falling. The Falls Efficacy Scale-International (FES-I) is used to measure these concerns. This study aims to validate the FES-I for use in CCM patients. The study involved administering the FES-I to patients before and after surgery for CCM. Researchers also looked at other measures of neurological function and balance to see if they correlated with the FES-I scores, assessing reliability and validity. The results showed that the FES-I is a reliable and valid tool for measuring balance problems in CCM patients. The study also identified a minimum clinically important difference (MCID) to help doctors interpret meaningful changes in patient scores.

• 1
  The FES-I demonstrated acceptable internal consistency with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.97 at both baseline and 1 year postoperatively, indicating reliability.
• 2
  Significant correlations were found between the FES-I and the cJOA-LE score (a measure of lower extremity function) and stabilometric parameters, confirming convergent validity.
• 3
  The minimum clinically important difference (MCID) for the FES-I, calculated using anchor- and distribution-based methods, was estimated to be 5.5 and 10, respectively.