The Short Physical Performance Battery is a valid tool in survivors of critical illness: international clinimetric secondary analysis.
Dominic Truong, Kirby P Mayer, Michael J Berry and 6 others
PMID 40985388WHAT IT FOUND
The Short Physical Performance Battery accurately tracks recovery in ICU survivors, but it misses details at the extremes.
It scores 19% of patients at discharge as zero and 28% as perfect at six months. Use the battery for general status, but measure walking speed and sit-to-stand times separately to catch subtle changes.
Key findings
01The battery showed acceptable predictive validity for identifying patients with minimal to mild limitations at six months post-discharge.
02The tool had a floor effect at hospital discharge, with nearly one in five patients scoring zero, and a ceiling effect at six months, with over a quarter scoring perfect.
03The minimal detectable change, or the smallest real improvement, was 1.2 to 1.4 points on the 12-point scale.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
This was a retrospective analysis of existing data where the SPPB was not always the primary outcome, leading to missing data and varied sample sizes across timepoints. The study included two interventional trials, which may have influenced the responsiveness estimates. The minimal detectable change was calculated using a reliability coefficient from older adults, not critically ill patients, because specific reliability data for this population was lacking. The analysis did not standardise outcome measures or timepoints across the eight original studies.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret a score of 0 at discharge or 12 at six months as a lack of change or perfect function. These scores reflect floor and ceiling effects where the tool loses sensitivity. In these cases, the total score is uninformative, and you must look at the raw time or repetition counts for the subtests to see if the patient is actually improving or deteriorating.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →