Reliability and validity of the Korean version of the Trunk Control Measurement Scale (TCMS-K) for children with cerebral palsy

• We demonstrate the reliability and the validity of the TCMS-K for children with CP.
• The TCMS-K has high reliability and validity.
• We suggest that the TCMS-K is a suitable evaluation tool for children with CP.
• The TCMS-K is able to assess the qualitative performance of trunk control.

The Trunk Control Measurement Scale (TCMS) was developed by Lieve Heyrman in 2011 to evaluate the clinical features of impaired trunk control ability in patients with cerebral palsy (CP). This study aimed to demonstrate the reliability and validity of the Korean version of the Trunk Control Measurement Scale (TCMS-K) for children with CP. Fifty children with spastic CP (mean age 9.08 ± 3.75) participated in the study. They were classified using the Gross Motor Function Classification System and the Manual Ability Classification System. The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) value of the inter-rater reliability for the TCMS-K was .987–.998, and the intra-rater reliability was .947–.996. The Spearman rank correlation coefficient between the TCMS-K and the Gross Motor Function Measure-B dimension was .860. The results of the study support that the TCMS-K has a high reliability and validity, which is similar to the original version. Thus, the TCMS-K is a suitable evaluation tool to assess the qualitative performance of trunk control and sitting balance for children with CP, and we expect that it will be a very useful tool for clinicians and researchers.