Development and validation of Incontinence - Activity Participation Scale for spinal cord injury

INTRODUCTION: We aimed to develop and validate an Incontinence – Activity Participation Scale (I-APS) for measurement of activity limitation and participation restriction due to bladder problems in spinal cord injury (SCI). MATERIALS AND METHODS: The process of development was initiated by formation of open-ended questions after thorough review of literature which were then administered to SCI participants, caretakers, and professionals working with SCI. Items were generated based on their responses and initial draft of scale was formulated. This initial draft of the scale containing 77 items was then administered to 56 SCI participants for reduction of items using factor analysis, and a prefinal version of the scale was obtained containing thirty items only. Content validity and face validity was then established. RESULTS: The I-APS is both health professional and self-administered questionnaire including two domains: Activities of daily living and occupation with 16 items having a content validity of 0.84. The overall internal consistency reliability was 0.86. CONCLUSION: The I-APS is a valid, comprehensive instrument that measures the activity limitation and participation restrictions due to bladder problems in SCI.