Annals of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine Mandarin Validation of the Simplified Evaluation of consciousness disorders（SECONDs）

Background

The Simplified Evaluation of CONsciousness Disorders (SECONDs) was recently proposed as a new fast scale to accurately diagnose patients suffering from disorders of consciousness (DoC). The aim of this study was to translate the SECONDs into Mandarin and validate it in a sample of Mandarin-speaking patients with DoC. 

Methods: Each patient was assessed by three distinct assessors. All assessments were completed within two weeks (7 SECONDs and 5 CRS-R). Until the end of the protocol, all three assessors were blinded to the scores acquired by the other assessors. 

Results

In the 47 included participants, the concurrent validity between diagnoses made with the CRS-R and the SECONDs on the same day or the best diagnoses between CRS-R and SECONDs led to “substantial” agreement (kappa from 0.61 to 0.72). Intra-/interrater reliability also showed almost perfect/substantial agreement (kappa from 0.90 to 0.91 and 0.75 to 0.76, respectively). 

Conclusions

The Mandarin version of the SECONDs has almost perfect reliability and substantial validity.

Annals of physical ans rehabilitaiotn medicin mandarin validation of the simplified evaluation of consciousness disorders