Reliability of the Body Awareness Scale‐Health

Abstract

In physical therapy the clinical assessment Body Awareness Scale-Health (BAS-H) focusing on the quality of movements and movement behaviour has previously been studied for validity. The aim of this study was to address the inter-rater reliability and test-retest reliability in three groups. The groups assessed were: patients in psychiatric care with eating disorders (n = 26), patients in rehabilitation of prolonged musculoskeletal pain (n = 22) and healthy individuals (n = 22). Results revealed inter-rater reliability (n = 70) of the BAS-H total to be 79.9 % with acceptable agreement (accepting one scale-step of difference) and 48.7% with perfect agreement. Weighted Kappa ranged between 0.34 and 0.92. Test-retest reliability (n = 54) as a mean for both raters were found to be 90.5% for the BAS-H total with acceptable agreement and 60.4% with perfect agreement. Weighted Kappa ranged between 0.65 and 0.92. The BAS-H seems to be a reliable assessment in the rehabilitation of patient with prolonged pain, psychiatric disorders and healthy controls when used according to the manual. The authors, however, suggest some revisions.