Cross-cultural adaptation and concurrent validity of the children's OMNI scale of perceived exertion for Arm-Crank activity in Spina Bifida.

Abstract

To perform a cross-cultural adaptation of the OMNI verbal descriptors to Brazilian-Portuguese and examine the validity of the Brazilian version for arm-crank activity. Cross-cultural adaptation stages were: permission, translation, synthesis, back translation, expert committee review, pretesting, and submission and appraisal. For the concurrent validity, a Brazilian OMNI-Wheel scale was used to obtain rating of perceived exertion for the overall body (RPE_Overall) and arms (RPE_Arms) in participants (<i>n</i> = 9, 10-17 years) with spina bifida. Cardiopulmonary exercise test was used to measure heart rate (HR) and oxygen uptake (VO₂). Repeated Measures Correlation (<i>r_rm)</i> was used to examine the scale validity. The cross-cultural adaptation produced equivalence between English and Brazilian-Portuguese verbal descriptors based on successful translation and pretesting. The Brazilian OMNI-wheel was validated based on strong associations of RPE_Overall with VO₂ (<i>r_rm</i> (35) = 0.86, 95% CI [0.93, 0.73], <i>p</i> < 0.001) and HR (<i>r_rm</i> (35) = 0.89, 95% CI [0.94, 0.79], <i>p</i> < 0.001) and RPE_Arms with VO₂ (<i>r_rm</i> (33) = 0.82, 95% CI [0.91, 0.66], <i>p</i> < 0.001) and HR (<i>r_rm</i> (33) = 0.82, 95% CI [0.91, 0.66], <i>p</i> < 0.001). The OMNI scale was cross-culturally adapted to Brazilian-Portuguese. The Brazilian OMNI-Wheel was validated based on strong associations of RPE with HR and VO₂. Implications For RehabilitationThe original English OMNI was cross-culturally adapted to Brazilian-Portuguese.A Brazilian wheelchair OMNI was concurrently validated for Arm-Crank Activity in adolescents with spina bifida.This OMNI scale version may aid health providers in monitoring perceived exertion in Brazil.