The reliability of measuring wound undermining in people with spinal cord injury.

Abstract

The objective of this study was to determine the reliability of measuring wound undermining in people with spinal cord injury (SCI). A psychometric study. The study was conducted at the Indian Spinal Injuries Centre, New Delhi, India. Thirty people with a complete or incomplete SCI and a pressure ulcer with wound undermining were recruited. Wound undermining was measured using the four cardinal points from a clock face (with 12 O'clock defined as towards the head). Inter-rater reliability was tested by comparing the wound undermining scores from two different assessors. Intra-rater reliability was tested by comparing the wound undermining scores from the same assessor on two different days. The intraclass correlation coefficients (95% confidence interval) for inter-rater and intra-rater reliability were 0.996 (0.992-0.999) and 0.998 (0.996-0.999), respectively. Repeat measurements by the same and different assessor were within 0.3 cm of each other, 80% and 83% of the time, respectively. Measurements of wound undermining have excellent reliability.