ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the factor structure of Functional Independence Measure (FIM®) scale amongst people with spinal cord injury (SCI). METHODS: This was a retrospective, register-based cohort study on 155 rehabilitants with SCI. FIM was assessed at the beginning and at the end of multidisciplinary inpatient rehabilitation. The internal consistency of the FIM was assessed with Cronbach's alpha and exploratory factor analysis was employed to approximate the construct structure of FIM. RESULTS: The internal consistency demonstrated high Cronbach's alpha of 0.95 to 0.96. For both pre- and postintervention assessments, the exploratory factor analysis resulted in 3-factor structures. Except for two items ("walking or using a wheelchair" and "expression"), the structures of the identified three factors remained the same from the beginning to the end of rehabilitation. The loadings of all items were sufficient, exceeding 0.3. Both pre- and postintervention chi-square tests showed significant p values < 0.0001. The "motor" domain was divided into two factors with this 2-factor structure enduring through the intervention period. CONCLUSIONS: Amongst rehabilitants with SCI, FIM failed to demonstrate unidimensionality. Instead, it showed a 3-factor structure that fluctuated only little depending on the timing of measurement. Additionally, when measured separately, also motor score was 2-dimensional, not 1-dimensional. Using a total or subscale FIM, scores seem to be unjustified in the studied population.
Subject(s)
Databases, Genetic , Access to Information , Biomedical Research , Europe , Genome, Human , HumansABSTRACT
The mission of the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), an outstation of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, is to ensure that the growing body of information from molecular biology and genome research is placed in the public domain and is accessible freely to all parts of the scientific community in ways that promote scientific progress. To fulfil this mission, the EBI provides a wide variety of free, publicly available bioinformatics services. These can be divided into data submissions processing; access to query, analysis and retrieval systems and tools; ftp downloads of software and databases; training and education and user support. All of these services are available at the EBI website: http://www.ebi.ac.uk/services. This paper provides a detailed introduction to the interactive analysis systems that are available from the EBI and a brief introduction to other, related services.
Subject(s)
Computational Biology , Databases, Genetic , Europe , Internet , Nucleic Acids/chemistry , Nucleic Acids/physiology , Proteins/chemistry , Proteins/physiology , Sequence Analysis , Sequence Homology , SoftwareABSTRACT
SUMMARY: The European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), and outstation of the European Molecular Biology laboratory, has revamped its web site for the second time since 1997 in order to address increased user demand as well as establishing better uniformity and easier accessibility for the ever growing number of users and services it offers to the community. A GRID-like hardware infrastructure has been put in place to provide round the clock services in a redundant and reliable fashion. AVAILABILITY: http://www.ebi.ac.uk/
