title: Mobile Phone-Based Questionnaire for Assessing 3 Months Modified Rankin Score After Acute Stroke: A Pilot Study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  In many countries, a majority of stroke patients are not assessed for long-term functional outcome owing to limited resources and time. We investigated whether automatic assessment of the modified Rankin Scale (mRS) based on a mobile phone questionnaire may serve as an alternative to mRS assessments at clinical visits after stroke.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We enrolled 62 acute stroke patients admitted to our stroke unit during March to May 2014. Forty-eight patients completed the study. During the stay, patients and/or caregivers were equipped with a mobile phone application in their personal mobile phones. The mobile phone application contained a set of 20 questions, based on the Rankin Focused Assessment, which we previously tested in a pilot study. Three months after inclusion, the mobile phone application automatically prompted the study participants to answer the mRS questionnaire in the mobile phones. Each question or a group of questions in the questionnaire corresponded to a certain mRS score. Using a predefined protocol, the highest mRS score question where the study participant had answered yes was deemed the final mobile mRS score. A few days later, a study personnel performed a clinical visit mRS assessment. The 2 assessments were compared using quadratic weighing κ-statistics. Mean age was 67 years (38% females), and median baseline National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) score was 5 (interquartile range 2-10.5, range 0-23). Median and mean clinical visit mRS at 3 months was 2 and 2.3, respectively. We found a 62.5% agreement between clinical visit and mobile mRS assessment, weighted kappa 0.89 (95% confidence interval 0.82-0.96), and unweighted kappa 0.53 (95% confidence interval 0.36-0.70). Dichotomized mRS outcome separating functionally independent (mRS score 0-2) from dependent (mRS score 3-5) showed 83% agreement and unweighted kappa of 0.66 (95% confidence interval 0.45-0.87).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Mobile phone-based automatic assessments of mRS performed well in comparison with clinical visit mRS and could be used as an alternative in stroke follow-up.
authors.affiliation: From the Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Karolinska Institutet and Department of Neurology, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden. charith.cooray@karolinska.se.
authors.forename: Charith
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cooray
authors.affiliation: From the Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Karolinska Institutet and Department of Neurology, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: Marius
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Matusevicius
authors.affiliation: From the Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Karolinska Institutet and Department of Neurology, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: Nils
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Wahlgren
authors.affiliation: From the Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Karolinska Institutet and Department of Neurology, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: Niaz
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ahmed
mesh_terms: D000208:Acute Disease; D000368:Aged; D040421:Cell Phone; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D063731:Mobile Applications; D010865:Pilot Projects; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012107:Research Design; D012647:Self-Assessment; D020521:Stroke / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013548:Sweden; D013997:Time Factors
keywords: cell phones; outcomes research; prediction; questionnaires; stroke