A telephone questionnaire in order to assess functional outcome after post-traumatic limb salvage surgery: Development and preliminary validation

作者：Wulterkens Leonie; Auregan Jean Charles^*; Letellier Thomas; Mebtouche Nasser; Levante Stephane; Cottin Philippe; Begue Thierry

来源：Injury-International Journal of the Care of the Injured, 2015, 46(12): 2452-2456.

DOI：10.1016/j.injury.2015.09.023

• Limb salvage surgery
• Lower limb
• Functional outcomes
• Telephone questionnaire

Background: Post-traumatic limb salvage surgery is challenging and evaluation of the results remains arduous. No questionnaire specifically assessing functional outcome after post-traumatic limb salvage surgery of the lower extremity exists. Due to regionalization of specialized care, the patients' travel time to the hospital increases. To overcome a higher patients' travel burden, patients' follow up by telephone is an option. We aimed to develop a telephone questionnaire in order to assess functional outcome after post-traumatic limb salvage surgery of the lower extremity.
Methods: From a review of scores of functional assessment of the lower limb surgery, we have developed a telephone questionnaire. A prospective study was performed to validate this telephone questionnaire. Twenty patients were included. The participants were called to complete the telephone questionnaire twice with an interval of a week. The Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) was completed during the second telephone call. The internal consistency was analyzed by the Cronbach's alpha (alpha). With the outcome scores of both completions, the test-retest reliability was analyzed by the interclass correlation coefficient (ICC) 2, k with a 95% confidence interval (95% CI). The outcome scores of the second telephone questionnaire and the WOMAC questionnaire were used for the construct validity analysis by the Spearman's rank correlation coefficient (r(s)) with a 95% CI.
Results: The internal consistency analysis revealed a alpha = 0.62 which improved to alpha = 0.92 after removing one question from the telephone questionnaire. The final version of the telephone questionnaire comprises 32 questions, divided in 3 subscales: function, daily life and psychology. The total score varies between 0 and 86 points. The test-retest reliability was ICC 2, k = 0.93 (95% CI: 0.82-0.97) and the construct validity was r(s) = 0.92 (95% CI: 0.81-0.97).
Conclusions: We present a specific telephone questionnaire in order to assess functional outcomes after posttraumatic limb salvage surgery of the lower extremity. Further research on a large number of patients will be necessary to validate this newly developed questionnaire.

• 出版日期2015-12