Rehabilitation status--the relationship between the Edinburgh Rehabilitation Status Scale (ERSS), Barthel Index, and PULSES profile.

A total of 364 patients attending day centres for the physically disabled had ERSS and Barthel scores recorded during the course of assessment. In addition, 100 of the patients had PULSES profile scores recorded. Correlation of total scores for all three scales confirmed that all three succeeded in measuring disability and all three were significantly related. There were, however, weak correlations between some of the individual subscales of each score, indicating that each of the assessment tools was measuring some dimensions of disability not adequately considered by the other scales. The results suggest that while progress is being made towards better measurement of disability and handicap, further refinement of these particular measurement tools is required.