Measurement properties of the Galveston Orientation and Amnesia Test (GOAT) and improvement patterns during inpatient rehabilitation

Objectives: To determine the measurement properties of the Galveston Orientation and Amnesia Test (GOAT) using the Rasch model and rating scale analysis (RSA). Design: Calibration of data collected weekly during rehabilitation. Setting: Six inpatient rehabilitation facilities. Participants: 77 patients admitted for their first rehabilitation after traumatic brain injury. Results: Rescoring the items as dichotomies, three strata of posttraumatic amnesia (PTA) were identified. AU items cohered to define a single construct and the item hierarchy confirmed their hypothesized ordering. Conclusions: Equal-interval measures of PTA were developed that exhibited good reliability and validity. A self-scoring key was developed to more efficiently assess PTA.