Reliability of the Segmental Assessment of Trunk Control in Children with Cerebral Palsy and its Consistency with Age – A Cross-Sectional Study

Background: Segmental Assessment of Trunk Control (SATCo) is a scale used to evaluate trunk control in children with cerebral palsy (CP). Objectives: The present study aimed at assessing the reliability of SATCo between a "live" scenario and video-recorded scores in children with CP (GMFCS levels III and IV). Methods: The study was observational in nature and aimed to evaluate the reliability of SATCo in assessing trunk control in 32 children aged between 2 to 11 years old with CP. This study only included children at GMFCS level III (n=19) or GMFCS level IV (n=13). Two raters (rater-1 and rater-2) evaluated the trunk control of each child using SATCo, and both raters scored the assessments retrospectively and independently using video recordings. Intra-rater reliability was calculated for each rater using Sperman’s rho for live versus video recordings, while inter-rater reliability was determined by estimating Spearman’s rho for the live scenario testing between the two raters. Results: Both the inter-rater and intra-rater reliability of the SATCo was good to excellent. The intra-rater reliability in our study ranged from 0.898 to 0.977, and the inter-rater reliability ranged from 0.827 to 0.913. All ICC values were excellent (≥0.9), except for one analysis where it was good (ICC = 0.795). Conclusion: SATCo is a reliable scale that can examine trunk control in children with CP belonging to GMFCS levels III and IV, aged 2-11 years.