A discriminative measure for static postural control ability to prevent in-hospital falls: Reliability and validity of the Standing Test for Imbalance and Disequilibrium (SIDE)

Abstract

Teranishi T, Kondo I, Sonoda S, Kagaya H, Wada Y, Miyasaka H, Tanino G, Narita W, Sakurai H, Okada M, Saitoh E. A discriminative measure for static postural control ability to prevent in-hospital falls: Reliability and validity of the Standing Test for Imbalance and Disequilibrium (SIDE). Jpn J Compr Rehabil Sci 2010; 1: 11-16
Purposes: To determine the reliability, validity, and clinical significance of the Standing Test for Imbalance and Disequilibrium (SIDE), a discriminative measure of standing balance, before using it to prevent falls in clinical settings.
Methods: In all, 30 patients (18 men and 12 women) with a mean (standard deviation) age of 57.4 (16.97) years (range, 25-85 years) who were admitted to the “Kaifukuki” rehabilitation ward voluntarily participated in this study. In the reliability study, 2 physiotherapists independently classified the level of static postural control ability by using SIDE. Functional balance control ability was simultaneously evaluated using the Berg Balance Scale (BBS). Cohen's κ statistic was used to determine the inter-rater reliability, and the Spearman rank-correlation coefficient between the BBS score and SIDE level was used to determine the criterion-related validity.
Results: Inter-rater reliability of SIDE showed excellent reproducibility (Cohen's κ statistic = 0.76). Criterion-related validity was very high between SIDE levels and BBS scores (Spearman rank-correlation coefficient = 0.93; p < 0.01).
Conclusion: SIDE can be used to efficiently and accurately classify balance control ability across individuals and has remarkable concurrent validity in balance evaluation compared to BBS.