Self-scoring templates for motor and cognitive subscales of the FIM instrument for persons with spinal cord injury

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Article provides self-scoring templates for the motor and cognitive scales of the Functional Independence Measure (FIM) that enable clinicians to monitor progress during rehabilitation using equal-interval Rasch-calibrated measures instead of ordinal raw scores. The FIM instrument is a measure of independence consisting of 13 physical and 5 cognitive functioning items rated by trained clinicians at admission and discharge and by self-report via telephone or in-person interview at follow-up. FIM data were obtained from 1,146 individuals with new traumatic spinal cord injuries (SCI) discharged from 6 geographically dispersed hospital-based rehabilitation centers in the United States. The SCI Keyforms were created from subscores of the FIM instrument, including a 13-item motor scale, a 5-item cognitive scale, an 11-item (without sphincter control items) motor scale, a 3-item transfer scale, a 6-item self-care scale, a 3-item self-care upper extremity scale, and a 3-item self-care lower extremity scale. The SCI KeyForms for the FIM instrument scales allow clinicians and investigators to estimate patients’ functional status and monitor progress. In cases with no missing data, the look-up tables provide more accurate estimates of patients’ functional status.

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