Development and Assessment of a Community Follow-up Questionnaire for the Rick Hansen Spinal Cord Injury Registry

Objective: To develop a comprehensive community follow-up questionnaire for participants enrolled in the Rick Hansen Spinal Cord Injury Registry (RHSCIR).

Design: Development and preliminary assessment of measurement properties (reliability and validity) of instruments used during a community follow-up and aligned with the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF).

Setting: General community setting.

Participants: People with spinal cord injury (N=50) living in the community.

Intervention: Not applicable.

Main Outcome Measures: A comprehensive follow-up questionnaire, referred to as the RHSCIR Community Follow-up Questionnaire Version 2.0 (CFQ-V2.0), includes 8 instruments. Four new instruments were developed, 2 existing instruments were modified, and 2 previously published instruments were included.

Results: Intra- and interrater reliability statistics (Gwet's AC1) support the measurement properties of the new and modified instruments. Correlations between new and existing instruments and between groups based on the severity of injury support the construct validity of the secondary complications and person-perceived participation instruments.

Conclusions: The RHSCIR CFQ-V2.0 is a comprehensive community follow-up questionnaire that aligns to the ICF. Initial study results suggest that it covers all relevant aspects of community living, and the measurement properties are promising.