The spinal cord injury quality-of-life-23 questionnaire, Iranian validation study

BACKGROUND The spinal cord injury quality-of-life questionnaire (SCIQL-23) is an instrument that has been developed for clinical follow-up as well health related quality-of-life (QOL) measurement in people with spinal cord injury (SCI). The purpose of this study was to assess the validity and reliability of the Persian version of SCIQL-23 in individuals with chronic SCI. MATERIALS AND METHODS Medical outcomes study 36 item short-form health survey (SF-36) as well as the Persian version of the SCIQL-23 questionnaires applied to be used in 52 veterans with spinal cord injuries in the Orthopedic Research Center, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences from January 2011 to August 2011. Cronbach's alpha co-efficient computed to test the reliability of the survey. In order to assess the convergent validity the correlation of each item of the SCIQL-23 done with each dimension of the SF-36 by applying the Pearson correlation co-efficient. Independent samples t-test used to test power of discrimination. RESULTS All of veterans were male and married. The mean age of individuals at the time of interview was 49.3 years (standard deviation = 7.9); in a range between 38 and 80 years. Most of them (88.5%) had incomplete paraplegia. Cronbach's alpha test revealed strong reliability in questions of SCI QOL (Total Cronbach's alpha = 0.764). A negative significant correlation occurred between physical function and functioning (FUNC) (r = -0.412**), bodily pain and problems related to injury (PROB) (r = -0.313*), vitality (VT) and mood state (MOOD) (r = -0.327*), social function and PROB (r = -0.309*), mental health (MH) and MOOD (r = -0.406**). Furthermore, the Mental component summary (MCS) of SF-36 had a negative significant correlation with MOOD (r = -0.312*). Similar to MCS, physical component summery (PCS) had a negative significant correlation with MOOD (r = -0.276*) in addition to FUNC (r = -0.324*) and PROB (r = -0.318*). Instead, GH (r = 0.455**), VT (r = 0.322*), MH (r = 0.276*) and PCS illustrated a positive significant correlation with global quality of life. CONCLUSION The Persian version of the SCQL-23 discovered to be competent in terms of its valuable psychometric properties in assessing the QOL of SCI people by showing excellent internal consistency and no floor or ceiling effect.