he Wheelchair Circuit: Construct Validity and esponsiveness of a Test to Assess Manual Wheelchair obility in Persons With Spinal Cord Injury

Objective: To assess the validity and responsiveness of the heelchair Circuit, a test to assess manual wheelchair mobility n persons with spinal cord injury (SCI). Design: Longitudinal. Subjects performed the Wheelchair ircuit at the start (T1) and at the end (T3) of inpatient unctional rehabilitation. Construct validity and responsiveness ere assessed. Setting: Eight rehabilitation centers in the Netherlands. Participants: Seventy-four subjects with SCI admitted for npatient rehabilitation. Interventions: Not applicable. Main Outcome Measures: The Wheelchair Circuit consists f 8 wheelchair skills and results in 3 test scores: ability, erformance time, and physical strain. The construct validity of he Wheelchair Circuit was assessed by testing whether the test cores were significantly related to the subjects’ functional tatus, physical capacity, lesion level, motor completeness of he lesion, and age. To prove the test’s responsiveness, it was ssessed whether the test scores had significantly improved etween T1 and T3. Results: For construct validity, 4 of the 5 hypotheses were onfirmed. For test responsiveness, all 3 test scores had signifcantly improved during rehabilitation, and the standardized esponse mean values ranged from 0.6 to 0.9. Conclusions: The Wheelchair Circuit is a valid and responive instrument with which to measure manual wheelchair obility in subjects with SCI.