Spinal Cord Injury - Quality of Life Positive Affect & Well Being

Last Updated

June 02, 2016

Expertise, Instruction and Mentorship

Center for Smart Use of Technologies to Assess Real World Outcomes (C-STAR)

Learn more

Upcoming Stroke Course

May 9–10
Live and Online

Offered by Academy, Shirley Ryan AbilityLab

Purpose

The SCI-QOL Positive Affect & Well Being instrument assesses aspects that relate to a sense of well-being, life satisfaction and sense of purpose.

Link to Instrument

Instrument Details

Acronym SCI-QOL Positive Affect & Well Being

Area of Assessment

Mental Health
Positive Affect
Quality of Life

Assessment Type

Patient Reported Outcomes

Administration Mode

Computer

Cost

Free

Cost Description

Paper copies of short forms are available. PDFs can be requested through emails to sci-qol@udel.edu and tbi-qol@udel.edu

Electronic versions can be found in the NIH Toolbox or the PROMIS app. Either app is $500/yr, and covers up to 10 iPads on a single license. The SCI-QOL and TBI-QOL CATs can be administered directly through these apps. It is important to note that using the app requires you to be physically with the participant or read the questions aloud by interview over the phone - there is no way to send a link to have someone complete the measures at home.

Free electronic versions are available. If your institution has REDCap, the CATs and short forms can be accessed through the REDCap instrument library by searching for the specific measure you want and adding them to your REDCap project. For non-REDCap alternatives, the SCI-QOL and TBI-QOL short forms can be imported into an alternative electronic administration platform such as Qualtrics, SurveyMonkey, Google Forms, etc. Email sci-qol@udel.edu or tbi-qol@udel.edu to request PDF versions.

Diagnosis/Conditions

Spinal Cord Injury

Spinal Injuries

The SCI-QOL Positive Affect & Well-being instrument is an item response theory (IRT)-calibrated item bank with 28 items that is available for administration as a computer adaptive test (CAT; range 4-12 items) or 10 item short form (SF). 5 items were newly generated and 23 were drawn from the Neuro-QOL positive affect and well-being scale.

Number of Items

Short form: 10

CAT: 4-12

The Short Form (SF) version requires only the printed form and a pencil. A CAT administration requires a desktop, laptop, or tablet computer with internet connection
Please see 'Cost Description' for more information on how to access this measure

Less than 5 minutes

Required Training

Reading an Article/Manual

Adults

18 - 64

years

Elderly Adults

65 +

years

Instrument Reviewers

Review completed by Kelsey Stipp, MS and Kristian Nitsch, MS for the Rehabilitation Measures Database Team.

ICF Domain

Body Function

Measurement Domain

Emotion

Considerations

Do you see an error or have a suggestion for this instrument summary? Please e-mail us!

Standard Error of Measurement (SEM)

Depends upon mode of administration:

Full Item Bank: Mean SEM= 0.14 (Range= 0.10-0.45)
10-Item Short Form: Mean SEM= 0.21 (Range= 0.14 - 0.48)
10-Item Fixed CAT: Mean SEM= 0.19 (Range= 0.13-0.47)
Variable-length CAT: Mean SEM= 0.20 (Range= 0.15 - 0.46)
Variable Length CAT (Min 4): Mean SEM= 0.25 (0.20-0.46)

Minimal Detectable Change (MDC)

Calculated Using Mean SEM at 95% Confidence Interval:

Full Item Bank: MDC= 0.39
10-Item Fixed CAT: MDC= 0.53
Variable Length CAT (Min 4): MDC= 0.69

Normative Data

(n=717, Mean Age= 43, SD= 15.3; Time Post Injury= 7.1, SD=10; 45% Paraplegia, 55% Tetraplegia)

Test/Retest Reliability

Traumatic SCI (Bertisch et al., 2015)

Excellent: (Pearson's r= 0.78)
Excellent: (ICC= 0.78)

Internal Consistency

Traumatic SCI (Bertisch et al., 2015)

Full Item Bank - Excellent: (Cronbach's Alpha= 0.97)

Content Validity

Items were derived from focus groups and interviews with individuals with traumatic SCI (n=65) and clinicians who specialize in SCI care (n=42) (Tulsky et al., 2011).

Floor/Ceiling Effects

Traumatic SCI (Bertisch et al., 2015

Full Item Bank:

Floor Effect: Excellent (0.14%)
Ceiling Effect: Adequate to Excellent (3.1%)

10-Item Short Form:

Floor Effect: Excellent (0.14%)
Ceiling Effect: Adequate to Excellent (9.9%)

10-Item Fixed-length CAT:

Floor Effect: Excellent (0.14%)
Ceiling Effect: Adequate to Excellent (4.5%)

Variable-length CAT (Min 8):

Floor Effect: Excellent (0.14%)
Ceiling Effect: Adequate to Excellent (3.49%)

Variable-length CAT (Min 4):

Floor Effect: Excellent (0.14%)
Ceiling Effect: Adequate to Excellent (3.5%)

Bibliography

Bertisch, H., Kalpakjian, C.Z., Kisala, P.A. & Tulsky, D.S. (2015). Measuring positive affect and well-being after spinal cord injury: Development and psychometric characteristics of the SCI-QOL Positive Affect and Well-being item bank and short form. Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine, 38(3), 356-365.

Tulsky, D.S., Kisala, P.A., Victorson, D. Tate, D., Heinemann, A.W., Amtmann, D., & Cella, D. (2011). Developing a contemporary patient-reported outcomes measure for spinal cord injury. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, 92(10), S44-S51.