Development of a new scale for perceived self-efficacy in manual wheeled mobility: a pilot study.

OBJECTIVE To study the psychometric qualities of a perceived self-efficacy in wheeled mobility scale. DESIGN Questionnaires. SUBJECTS Forty-seven wheelchair basketball players with spinal cord injury (elite n=25, recreational n=22, from 6 different countries). METHOD Based on the literature, and expert's and wheelchair user's comments, a new Self-Efficacy in Wheeled Mobility Scale (SEWM)1 was developed. Internal consistency (split-half and Cronbach's alpha) and concurrent validity (correlating the Self-Efficacy in Wheeled Mobility Scale with the Generalized Perceived Self-efficacy Scale (GSE) and the spinal cord injury Exercise Self-Efficacy Scale (ESES)) were assessed. To evaluate the construct validity, age, lesion level and completeness and time since injury between groups of participants and their total scores were compared statistically. RESULTS Cronbach's alpha for the SEWM was 0.91, internal consistency was r=0.90. Significant correlations between pairs of scales of the entire sample (SEWM-ESES: 0.60; SEWM-GSE: 0.50 (p<0.05; n= 47, 2-tailed) and of the sub-group comparison (SEWM-ESES recreational r=0.61; elite r=0.73), demonstrated fair construct and concurrent validity of the SEWM. CONCLUSION The SEWM was found to be reliable and valid in active spinal cord injury. A larger more diverse sample is needed to support the psychometric qualities of the SEWM scale.