Measures of order consistency between paired ordinal data: application to the Functional Independence Measure and Sunnaas index of ADL.

The aim was to evaluate the inter-item consistency between corresponding items in the Functional Independent Measure (FIM) and Sunnaas index of ADL (SI) by means of a statistical approach that takes account of the nonmetric properties of ordinal data. The ADL dependence in 204 stroke patients was assessed by interview 3 months after the onset of stroke. The result showed that the inter-item consistency between the FIM and SI were high for many items, but operational differences between some FIM and SI items were also identified. The statistical evaluation demonstrated that some of the ordered categorical levels of the seven-point item scales in the FIM could be aggregated into four levels without loss of information.