ABC scale psychometrics

[Daniel Melby]

Hi there! I’m just winding down my studying for outcome measures and noted a discrepancy in the stats for the ABC scale. Your outcome measures master list (which is excellent btw) says the cut off for PD is 55% and MDC is 11.12, whereas the ANPT handout for the ABC scale says cut off for PD is <69% and MDC is 13% or 30.5% (2 different studies). I’m assuming go with the ANPT handout, but just curious if your numbers were from a different study?

Apologies if someone has already mentioned this, thanks!

[Chrissy Durrough Lugge]

Hi Daniel,
Thanks for pointing this out! There are actually five different studies of the ABC in PD – and the ANPT and I picked opposite studies.

It looks like the ANPT is referencing Mak and Pang’s 2009 study for cut-off scores, and Steffen’s 2008 study and Jonasson’s 2014 study for MDC.

I used Almeida’s 2016 study for cut-off scores and Dal Bello-Haas’s 2011 study for MDC.

I’ll look at this a little more and may change my references to be consistent with the ANPT!

-Mak MK, Pang MY. Fear of falling is independently associated with recurrent falls in patients with Parkinson’s disease: a 1-year prospective study. J Neurol. 2009;256(10):1689-1695.
-Steffen T, Seney M. Test-retest reliability and minimal detectable change on balance and ambulation tests, the 36-item short-form health survey, and the unified Parkinson disease rating scale in people with parkinsonism. Phys Ther. 2008;88(6):733-746.
-Jonasson SB, Nilsson MH, Lexell J. Psychometric properties of four fear of falling rating scales in people with Parkinson’s disease. BMC Geriatr. 2014;14:66.
– Almeida LRS, Valenca GT, Negreiros NN, Pinto EB, Oliveira-Filho J. Comparison of self-report and performance-based balance measures for predicting recurrent falls in people with Parkinson disease: cohort study. Phys Ther. 2016;96(7):1074-1084.
– Dal Bello-Haas V, Klassen L, Sheppard MS, Metcalfe A. Psychometric properties of activity, self-efficacy, and quality-of-life measures in individuals with Parkinson disease. Physiother Can. 2011;63(1):47-57.

[Author]

Posts