The concurrent validity of the Amharic version of Screening of Activity Limitation and Safety Awareness (SALSA) in persons affected by leprosy

Objectives: Leprosy is endemic in many countries and results in activity limitations. There is a need for assessment tools to guide professionals in their evaluation and choice of intervention in order to improve conditions for leprosy-affected people. The purpose of our study was to evaluate the concurrent validity of the Amharic version of Screening of Activity Limitation and Safety Awareness (SALSA-am) scale with Amharic version of Disability of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand (DASH-am) questionnaire. Design: Thirty-eight individuals with nerve damage due to leprosy completed the SALSA-am and DASH-am questionnaires. Spearman’s rank correlation was used to determine relationships between SALSA and DASH scores. Specificity, sensitivity and accuracy were calculated. Results: There was a good correlation 0·87 (P , 0·001) between SALSA-am and DASH-am scores. Sensitivity, specificity and accuracy were calculated with acceptable results. Conclusions: SALSA-am is considered a useful questionnaire for determining activity limitations in persons affected by leprosy, and showed good correlation with DASH-am. The concurrent validity was considered good. Correspondence