Evaluation of newly developed item banks for child-reported outcomes of participation following spinal cord injury.

Abstract

Multi-center, prospective calibration study. To examine the psychometric properties of item banks designed for a computer adaptive test of participation. Three pediatric specialty care hospitals in North America. Newly developed item banks containing questions about participation were administered to 381 children, 8-21 years. Unidimensionality was evaluated using categorical confirmatory factor analysis and residual correlations. Pearson's correlations were calculated between simulated CATs and the full-item banks. CFI=0.905, TLI=0.951 and RMSEA=0.089 for the self-participation item bank; CFI=0.924, TLI=0.963 and RMSEA=0.083 friend-participation item bank. The 15- and 5- item simulated CATs and full-item banks were highly correlated. The newly developed self and friend-participation item banks met the required assumptions for CAT. Simulated CATs yielded scores comparable to full-item banks. The results of the study support the use of the item banks for a CAT of participation in children following spinal cord injury.