Reliability and Validity of the Trunk Control Measurement Scale in Children With Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

This article focuses on evaluating the reliability and validity of the Turkish version of the Trunk Control Measurement Scale (TCMS) for assessing trunk control in children with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), a neuromuscular disease characterized by proximal muscle weakness. In a study involving 52 children with DMD, the Turkish TCMS demonstrated excellent internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.95), high intra-rater and inter-rater reliability (intraclass correlation coefficients between 0.90–0.96), and strong correlations with trunk muscle strength and the Motor Function Measure (MFM), supporting its convergent validity. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated an acceptable factor structure, and the scale effectively differentiated trunk control levels across functional grades defined by the Vignos Scale. The findings suggest that the Turkish TCMS is a reliable, valid, and reproducible tool suitable for clinical and research use in evaluating trunk control in children with DMD.