National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale reliable and valid in plain English.
The National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) is commonly used in the assessment of stroke severity. Nurses, who use the tool infrequently, find it difficult to use due to the neurologic terminology embedded in the scale. For this project, we modified the NIHSS by replacing the neurologic terminology for each component of the original scale with plain English. No components were deleted or changed; the language was merely simplified. Testing showed the modified tool to be reliable (0.96) and valid (0.977) when compared with the NIHSS.
Providence Portland Medical Center, Portland, OR, USA. Sandy.Dancer@providence.org
Sandy
S
Dancer
Allen J
AJ
Brown
Lisa Rietz
LR
Yanase
D002983:Clinical Competence; D004401:Dysarthria / Q000209:etiology; D004509:Education, Nursing, Continuing; D005158:Facial Paralysis / Q000209:etiology; D006801:Humans; D009316:National Institutes of Health (U.S.); D009460:Neurologic Examination / Q000379:methods* / Q000451:nursing / Q000592:standards; D009730:Nursing Assessment / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D015403:Nursing Evaluation Research; D009741:Nursing Staff, Hospital / Q000193:education; D015588:Observer Variation; D009922:Oregon; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D020521:Stroke / Q000145:classification / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis*; D009626:Terminology as Topic; D014481:United States