A recent study tested the validity of the Survey of Activities and Fear of Falling in the Elderly (mSAFE) for people who use lower-limb prostheses. The study’s authors noted that data, while limited, suggests fear of falling may be common among lower-limb prosthesis users, associated with negative rehabilitation outcomes, and may lead to self-imposed declines in activity.
The research team evaluated the convergent, discriminant, and known-group construct validity of the modified and also sought to determine if the mSAFE scale could be reduced without losing information regarding construct validity.
Fifty-nine people with unilateral or bilateral amputations and at least six months of experience using a definitive prosthesis for activities other than transfers participated through an online survey. The study provided initial evidence regarding validity of the mSAFE as a measure to assess fear-of-falling-related activity avoidance, and that a six-item scale may be appropriate if the full scale would be taxing or time consuming, the authors concluded.
The study, “Validating a fear-of-falling-related activity avoidance scale in lower limb prosthesis users,” was published in PM&R.
