Inter-rater reliability of the functional standing test

The functional standing test (FST) has been proposed as an evaluation tool to assess the ability to perform one-handed reaching tasks while standing. It is composed of eighteen timed subtests involving manipulation of objects on countertop and simulated kitchen shelves. This study assessed the inter-rater reliability of the FST when administered to adolescents with spinal cord injuries (SCI) standing with braces, and to able-bodied young adults. Two testers administered the FST in random order and the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC (2,1)) was used to analyze inter-rater reliability. Eighty percent of the subtests were found to be moderately to very reliable when applied to the SCI sample on the same day. Half of the test items were categorized as having the same level of inter-rater reliability between the two sample populations. Unreliable subtasks should be eliminated from analyses involving data collected by different testers