Translation and cross-cultural adaptation of the Wheelchair Skills Test (WST) version 4.3 form from English to Colombian Spanish

Abstract

Introduction: The World Health Organization estimates that in 2010, 15% of the world’s population lived with some form of disability and 10% of these people required wheelchairs. Colombia and other Spanish-speaking countries lack reliable scales, and ones that are in Spanish, to assess wheelchair handling skills such as that provided by the Wheelchair Skills Test 4.3.

Objective: To translate and cross-culturally adapt the Wheelchair Skills Test 4.3 form to Spanish, to be used with the Colombian population that uses a wheelchair.

Materials and method: The design of this research uses a methodology that centres on validation studies and transcultural adaptation following the stages of translation, back translation and evaluation of translations by the author and expert judgement.

Results: The adaptation had a global agreement index of 93.3 (Total Agreement Level). The three indicators were 92% relevance, 93.3% coherence and 94.5% sufficiency; and 22 of the 51 items evaluated (43.1%) had a 100% agreement level.

Conclusions: The outcome of this transcultural adaptation was the Colombian Spanish version of the Wheelchair Skills Test (WST) 4.3 Form.

Implications for rehabilitation

• Fifteen per cent of the world’s population (2010), and 10% of people with disabilities need wheelchairs.

• The Colombian population requiring the use of a manual wheelchair, 51% are limited in terms of “walking, running, jumping” and permanently limited in their movement for walk (29.32%).

• The use of reliable and cross-culturally adapted scales, such as the Wheelchair Wheelchair Skills Test (WST), is essential for rehabilitation personnel.

• The assessment of wheelchair user skills is fundamental to identify the level of participation in their respective communities as well as the development of their basic activities.

Keywords:

• Validation studies
• wheelchair
• outcome measures
• rehabilitation

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, the Department of Human Body Movement and to the Faculty of Medicine; the jurors, physiatrists Dr. Rodrigo Castro and Dr. Maria Leonor Rengifo Varona, and Professor Maria Luisa Toro Hernández; and official translators Claudia Espinosa and Víctor Manuel Rojas. Special appreciation to the authors of the scale who allowed translation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

The call for seed research, creation and innovation of the Faculty of Medicine - 2016 Action Plan. We, the authors, declare that funding had no influence on the design of the study; in the collection, analysis or interpretation of the data; or in the preparation, revision or approval of the manuscript.

The authors of the Wheelchair Skills Test 4.3 scale were contacted, and they provided all the required permits for the translation and cross-cultural adaptation of the assessment form, as well as the review and approval of the final version.