Development and psychometric characteristics of the SCI-QOL Ability to Participate and Satisfaction with Social Roles and Activities item banks and short forms

OBJECTIVE To develop a spinal cord injury (SCI)-focused version of PROMIS and Neuro-QOL social domain item banks; evaluate the psychometric properties of items developed for adults with SCI; and report information to facilitate clinical and research use. DESIGN We used a mixed-methods design to develop and evaluate Ability to Participate in Social Roles and Activities and Satisfaction with Social Roles and Activities items. Focus groups helped define the constructs; cognitive interviews helped revise items; and confirmatory factor analysis and item response theory methods helped calibrate item banks and evaluate differential item functioning related to demographic and injury characteristics. SETTING Five SCI Model System sites and one Veterans Administration medical center. PARTICIPANTS The calibration sample consisted of 641 individuals; a reliability sample consisted of 245 individuals residing in the community. RESULTS A subset of 27 Ability to Participate and 35 Satisfaction items demonstrated good measurement properties and negligible differential item functioning related to demographic and injury characteristics. The SCI-specific measures correlate strongly with the PROMIS and Neuro-QOL versions. Ten item short forms correlate >0.96 with the full banks. Variable-length CATs with a minimum of 4 items, variable-length CATs with a minimum of 8 items, fixed-length CATs of 10 items, and the 10-item short forms demonstrate construct coverage and measurement error that is comparable to the full item bank. CONCLUSION The Ability to Participate and Satisfaction with Social Roles and Activities CATs and short forms demonstrate excellent psychometric properties and are suitable for clinical and research applications.