Reliability of the Nottingham Health Profile after suffering a stroke

This article seeks to evaluate the reliability, internal consistency and accuracy of the Nottingham Health Profile (NHP), namely a quality of life (QL) instrument for individuals after suffering a stroke. This cross-sectional study was carried out in the communities of Recife in the State of Pernambuco. The sample was composed of 53 individuals at the chronic stroke phase. After checking the cognitive state, the NHP was applied. Descriptive statistics were employed for characterization of the sample; Cronbach's alpha (a) coefficients were used for evaluation of internal consistency, and intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC) were used for investigation of reliability, as well as consistency of the Bland and Altman plotting tests with 5% level of significance. Their perceptions of their own health were 83.3% positive for the majority of NHP criteria (average scores > 50 points), except for the "physical ability" criterion where scores ranged between 41.5 and 50 points. The NHP had good internal consistency with a values between 0.81 to 0.87; excellent reliability indices for the "pain" and "physical ability" criteria (ICC > 0.90); and 95% consistency. Besides being simple and easily applied, NHP had adequate clinimetric properties for the assessment of individuals after a chronic stroke.