Work performance questionnaire after returning to work in ischemic stroke survivors: the WPQ-INNN survey

Objective: Quality of performance after stroke in working-active survivors has been poorly studied. The aim of this study is to analyze work performance after stroke not only by the probability of being active in daily job activities but also by the survivor’s ability to recover capability in different cognitive and motor areas. Material and methods: We developed a 15-item survey for stroke who had returned to their work activity. The survey evaluated 11 different domains (language, memory, attention, planning, calculating, writing, motor skills, gait, visual, mood, and self-perception). Internal consistency, test-retest reliability, item-scale correlation, and factor analysis were conducted. Results: A total of 100 ischemic stroke survivors were recruited (51 [51.0%] female patients, median age 42 years [interquartile range = 34.5-54.5 years]); median time to return to work was 4 months. Work performance after stroke was high in 16% of cases, good in 58% of cases, moderate in 24%, and low in 2%. Chronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.75 for the scale. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy was 0.72 (p < 0.001). The test-retest reliability, as estimated by the intraclass correlation coefficients, was good. Memory, language, and attention explained 59.7% of the variance of the questionnaire in the extraction analysis. Conclusion: The WPQ-INNN is a reliable and valid tool for the assessment of performance quality in stroke survivors who returned to work.