Adaptação transcultural do Stroke Upper Limb Capacity Scale (SULCS): um instrumento de avaliação da capacidade manual em indivíduos com hemiparesia

Abstract

After a stroke, the presence of residual impairments has the potential toimpact the use of the upper limbs (UL) in carrying-out daily activities, considered essential for an independent life. The Stroke Upper Limb Capacity Scale (SULCS) assesses the proximal and distal functions of the UL of individuals with stroke. Its 10 items, which are hierarchically ordered, represent relevant tasks related to daily activities carried-out within the home environment. Objective: To cross-culturaly adapt the SULCS for its use in Brazil. Method: The process of cross-cultural adaptation was carried-out in five stages, following standardized procedures: translation, synthesis of translations, back-translation, expert committee evaluation, and testing of the pre-final version in 15 post-stroke individuals. Results: The original and back-translated versions showed adequate semantic equivalence. The expert committee adapted the description of the items to the grammatical rules of the Portuguese-Brazil language. An observation was added in one item of the scale, to better describe the way the task is accomplished, for experimental equivalence. The test material was also adapted in three items of the scale, for cultural equivalence. There were not found any difficulties in understanding the items during the test of the pre-final version. Conclusion: The SULCS-Brazil showed adequate semantic, idiomatic, cultural, and experimental equivalences. The results support the use of the SULCS-Brazil as a tool for the assessement of UL capacity of individuals with stroke. Future studies are necessary for the continuation of the validation process, based upon the investigation of other measurement properties, such as construct validity and reliability.