An evaluation of the International Standards to Document Remaining Autonomic Function after Spinal Cord Injury: input from the international community.

STUDY DESIGN: Interactive workshops with a presurvey-postsurvey.

OBJECTIVES: To describe a series of workshops held at international meetings to inform the spinal cord injury (SCI) community about the International Standards to Document Remaining Autonomic Function after Spinal Cord Injury (ISAFSCI) and to obtain feedback on both the workshop and the ISAFSCI assessment.

SETTING: Three international conferences of SCI practitioners in Toronto, Las Vegas and Vancouver held between 2012 and 2013.

METHODS: The workshops included an overview of the ISAFSCI, sharing experiences using it in clinical practice and interactive cases illustrating how to complete the scoring. A presurvey-postsurvey was administered to obtain feedback on the workshops and the ISAFSCI assessment.

RESULTS: One hundred and fourteen participants completed the workshop surveys and 96% (109/114) completed both presurvey and postsurvey. Prior to the workshop, 41% (47/114) of those who had completed the survey reported assessing autonomic function in their practice, and of those, 53% (25/47) reported using the ISAFSCI. After the workshop, 74% (84/114) of participants reported that the case studies were helpful, and 57% (65/114) reported that they wanted to start or continue to use the ISAFSCI in their clinical practice. Suggestions for improving the ISAFSCI included providing further areas to consider when performing the assessment, addressing ambiguity of terms and reporting foreseeable implementation challenges.

CONCLUSION: Results from this workshop suggest that more work is needed to inform the SCI community on the ISAFSCI assessment and to further clarify its language. Results from this study will inform future revisions to the ISAFSCI.