Test of infant motor performance: Cross-cultural adaptation, validity and reliability in Persian infants

Abstract

BackgroundThe Test of Infant Motor Performance (TIMP) is an appropriate tool used to measure infant motor performance in many countries and due to the importance of the TIMP in the early diagnosis of infants with developmental delay, the production of a reliable translation of the TIMP in Iran is necessary. AimsThis study was designed to evaluate the validity and reliability of the Persian version of the TIMP and cross-cultural adaptation of the TIMP to Persian. MethodTwenty- two experts were involved in translation, cross-cultural adaptation, validity and reliability. 170 Persian premature infants with post menstrual age (PMA) 34–42 weeks were tested to evaluate inter-rater and intra-rater reliability, test-retest and discriminative validity of the Persian version of the TIMP. ResultsThe content validity and face validity of the items of the Persian version of the TIMP were confirmed by a 10-expert panel and 10 therapists. High intra- and inter-rater reliability (ICC = 0.98, Kappa = 0.93), test-retest reliability (ICC = 0.98) and internal consistency (α = 0.82) were detected for the Persian version of the TIMP. Discriminative validity confirmed that the TIMP could distinguish groups of infants born with a low birth weight (p ˂ 0.001) and infants born small for gestational age (p = 0.002). ConclusionsHigh validity and reliability are reported for the Persian version of the TIMP and this test was demonstrated to be differentiate among groups of infants who are at risk of motor delay.