Cross-cultural adaptation of wheelchair skills test (version 4.3) for wheelchair users and caregivers to the Portuguese language (Brazil)

Abstract

Objective: To perform cross-cultural adaptation of the Wheelchair Skills Test of manual wheelchair users and their caregivers into the Brazilian Portuguese language.

Methods: The study was composed of translation, synthesis of translations, back-translation, review by an expert committee and pre-test, when the test was applied in the target population. Included were translators, subject specialists and coordinators to carry out the cross-cultural adaptation process, and manual wheelchair users and their caregivers with at least six months of wheelchair experience for the pre-test.

Results: Forty-three people participated in the study, 30 for the pre-test and 13 for the stages that preceded the pre-test. The mean age of manual wheelchair users was 40.2 (±10.7) years and of caregivers was 44.2 (±15.7) years. Of the 47 phrases translated in the first stage, 36 discrepancies were found and resolved. During the analysis by the committee of experts the instrument underwent 13 modifications in order to achieve the best possible equivalence between the original version and the final version and was understandable by the people evaluated. The total pre-test scores of wheelchair users and their caregivers were 66.2 (±24.6) and 88.7 (±14.2), respectively.

Conclusions: This instrument was able to evaluate the abilities of wheelchair users and their caregivers in Brazil, as well as being useful for training in rehabilitation programs.

Implications for rehabilitation

• The need to use wheelchair (WC) properly has made clinicians and rehabilitation professionals more concerned with assessing and training users' abilities with their WC.

• Cross-cultural adaptation allows for the linguistic modification of the original language of the evaluation tool into a new language and enables the comparison of research results in different countries.

• Immediate use of the instrument for WC users and caregivers in Brazil, both for evaluation and for training, is necessary and may be a means for rehabilitation professionals to improve their evaluations, their treatments and optimize the skills that aim at independence.

Keywords:

• Wheelchairs
• rehabilitation
• functional mobility
• assistive technology
• cross-cultural adaptation

Acknowledgements

We thank all the participants in this study: patients, researchers, professors and caregivers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.