Reliability of the Segmental Assessment of Trunk Control in Children with Cerebral Palsy and Its Consistency with Age: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Segmental Assessment of Trunk Control (SATCo) is a tool designed to evaluate trunk control in children with cerebral palsy (CP). To examine the reliability of SATCo between a "live" scenario and video-recorded scores in children with CP (GMFCS levels III and IV). This observational study evaluated the reliability of SATCo by examining the trunk control in 32 children with CP aged 2 to 11 years. This study included only children with CP having GMFCS level III (<i>n</i> = 19) and GMFCS level IV (<i>n</i> = 13). Two raters (Rater 1 and Rater 2) examined the trunk control of each child using SATCo, and both raters scored the assessments retrospectively and independently using video recordings. Intra-rater reliability was calculated for each rater using Sperman's rho for live versus video recordings, while inter-rater reliability was determined by estimating Spearman’s rho for the live scenario testing between the two raters. Both the inter-rater and intra-rater reliability of the SATCo was good to excellent. The intra-rater reliability in our study ranged from 0.898 to 0.977, and the inter-rater reliability ranged from 0.827 to 0.913. All ICC values were excellent (≥ 0.9), except for inter-rater (static component), for which it was good (ICC = 0.795). SATCo is a reliable tool to examine trunk control in children with CP aged 2-11 years belonging to GMFCS levels III and IV.