Reliability and validity of school function assessment for children with cerebral palsy in Guangzhou, China

Abstract

Background/Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the reliability and validity of the Chinese version of the School Function Assessment (SFA) for primary school students with cerebral palsy (CP) in Guangzhou, China. Methods: Ninety-three students with CP were recruited by convenience sampling from a special school. The Chinese version of the SFA was administered and an exploratory factor analysis with direct oblique rotation was used to extract the factor structure underlying the Activity Performance scales of the SFA. An intraclass correlation one-way random single measure was performed to study external reliability. Cronbach's alpha was used to study internal consistency. Results: The findings showed that the Chinese version of the SFA had high internal consistency with test-retest reliability [ICC (1, k) = 0.49-0.97]. Conclusion: This study has established the applicability of the SFA for both clinical and research purposes in the Chinese population, and presented evidence of satisfactory psychometric properties in use with primary school students with CP in special schools.