Production and validation of Putonghua- and Cantonese-Chinese language National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale training and certification videos.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSES

The National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) is an integral part of acute stroke assessment. We report our experience with new Putonghua- and Cantonese-Chinese language NIHSS (PC-NIHSS and CC-NIHSS) training and certification videos.

METHODS

A professional video production company was hired to create the training and certification videos for both PC-NIHSS and CC-NIHSS. Two training and certification workshops were held in Chengdu and Beijing, and two workshops in Hong Kong. The instruction, training and group A certification videos were presented to workshop attendees. Unweighted kappa statistics were used to measure the agreement among raters, and the inter-rater agreements for PC-NIHSS and CC-NIHSS videos were compared with those of original English language NIHSS (E-NIHSS) videos.

RESULTS

The pass rates using PC-NIHSS and CC-NIHSS videos were 79% and 82%, respectively. All possible responses on individual scale items were included. Facial palsy and limb ataxia (13%) showed poor agreement, nine (60%) to 10 (67%) items showed moderate agreement (0.4<kappa<0.75), and three (20%) to four (27%) items showed excellent agreement. When compared with E-NIHSS videos, the agreements on best gaze, visual fields, facial weakness and aphasia were less for PC-NIHSS videos, and the agreements on commands for level of consciousness and visual fields were less for CC-NIHSS videos. Nevertheless, there was no difference between PC-NIHSS or CC-NIHSS and E-NIHSS videos in the agreement on total score.

CONCLUSIONS

Compared with E-NIHSS videos, PC-NIHSS and CC-NIHSS videos show good content validity and inter-rater reliability. Availability of these videos may facilitate the proper use of NIHSS among physicians and nurses in Putonghua- or Cantonese-speaking communities.