Abstract
This study aimed to analyze the responsiveness of the 5STS test among stroke patients and to estimate the MCIDs (minimal clinically important differences) for different severity levels of community ambulation and stages of recovery. The 5STS and comparator instruments (gait speed and Functional Ambulatory Category (FAC)) were evaluated at baseline. These measures were repeated at 4 (Stage 1) and 8 weeks (Stage 2), together with the Global Rating of Change (GROC). The MCIDs were calculated with two anchor-based methods using the GROC as the external criterion. Responsiveness to change for the 5STS was estimated analyzing the correlation with changes in the two comparator instruments and their capacity to discriminate improvement. For the 5STS test, while the MCIDs of the limited community ambulators were similar in the two stages (around 3 s), those of the household ambulators decreased from 1.9 s to 0.72 s. Spearman’s rho coefficients showed an acceptable correlation between changes in 5STS and changes for both the FAC and gait speed changes in both stages of recovery. Our study revealed that the 5STS is responsive to functional changes in patients with stroke and that their degree of severity and stage of recovery influence the MCID values of the 5STS.
Highlights
This paper focuses on these voids and provides minimal clinically important difference (MCID) which may be used by clinicians and researchers
The MCIDs of the 5STS and gait speed were calculated with two anchor-based methods (the Receiver Operator Characteristics (ROC) method and the within-patients method) [11], using the Global Rating of Change (GROC) as the external criterion
123 stroke patients were screened for inclusion
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This paper focuses on these voids and provides MCIDs which may be used by clinicians and researchers Clinicians can use this information to interpret the relevance of changes observed in a patient; whereas researchers can use it to define the boundary between change or no change among two groups (e.g., those treated with different interventions) and for the calculation of sample sizes [8]. These parameters may be an opportunity to determine responsiveness compared to other relevant outcome measures [9].
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