VALIDATION DATA

MEASUREMENT PROPERTIES
Limitations <5 European languages (English)
Observations
1. RELIABILITY
A. Internal Consistency Not Tested
Cronbach's (Describe)
B. Reliability intraobserver or test-retest Tested
Continuous scores: intraclass
correlation coefficient (ICC)
Dichotomus: Cohen kappa (Describe)

ICC=0.50–0.61

C. Reliability interobserver or Measurement error Not Tested
Standard error of measurement (SEM),
smallest detectable change (SDC) or
Limits of agreement (LoA) (Describe)
2. VALIDITY
A. Content validity: face validity Tested
Expert opinion (relevance and
comprehensiveness) (Describe)

constructed by a recognized specialist in SSc, one experienced rheumatologist and one physiotherapist working with scleroderma patients. There were no major problems with comprehension, the patients found the questionnaire 100% understandable, relevant to their disease and feasible

B. Construct Validity:
Structural validity
Tested
Hypotheses-testing Not Tested
Cross-cultural validity Not Tested
Brief Description

All thickness-related scores were sorted into the same factor by principal component analysis. Conversely, skin thinness scores were sorted into a distinct factor.

C. Criterion validity Tested
Comparison with a 'gold standard' Continuous scores:
correlations, ROC curves Dichotomus:
Sensitivity & Specificity (Describe)

Gold standard mRSS. The baseline mRSS correlated significantly with the 17-area thickness score (rho=0.435), overall thickness score (rho=0.332) and VAS -thickness score (rho=0.239)