Title

Validity and reliability of the FIM instrument in the inpatient burn rehabilitation population

Department

Health Promotion

Document Type

Article

Publication Source

Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation

Publication Date

2013-01-01

Volume

94

Issue

8

First Page

1521

Last Page

1526.e4

Abstract

Objective: To provide evidence of construct validity for the FIM instrument in the inpatient rehabilitation burn population. Design: Confirmatory factor analysis and item response theory were used to assess construct validity. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed on a 2-factor model of the FIM instrument and on a 6-subfactor model. Mokken scale analysis, a nonparametric item response theory, was performed on each of the FIM instrument's 2 major factors, motor and cognitive domains. Internal consistency using Cronbach alpha and Molenaar and Sijtsma's statistic was also examined. Setting: Inpatient rehabilitation facilities. Participants: Data from the Uniform Data System for Medical Rehabilitation for patients with an impairment code of burn injury from the years 2002 to 2011 were used for this analysis. A total of 7569 subjects were included in the study. Interventions: Not applicable. Main Outcome Measures: Comparative fit index results for the confirmatory factor analyses and adherence to assumptions of the Mokken scale model. Results: Confirmatory factor analysis provided a comparative fit index of.862 for the 2-factor model and.941 for the 6-subfactor model. Mokken scale analysis showed scalability coefficients of.681 and.891 for the motor and cognitive domains, respectively. Measures of internal consistency statistic gave values of >.95 for each major domain of the FIM instrument. Conclusions: The FIM instrument has evidence of validity and reliability as an outcome measure for patients with burn injuries in the inpatient rehabilitation setting. The 6-subfactor model provides a better fit than the 2-factor model by confirmatory factor analysis. There is evidence that the motor and cognitive domains each form valid unidimensional metrics based on nonparametric item response theory. © 2013 by the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine.

Keywords

Burns, Factor analysis, Outcome measures, Psychometrics, Rehabilitation, Validation

DOI

10.1016/j.apmr.2013.02.019

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apmr.2013.02.019

Link to Full Text
COinS