Article

The aim of the study was to assess reliability, validity and
responsiveness of Duruoz Hand Index (DHI), which has been developed for
evaluation of activity limitation in rheumatoid arthritis in patients with
traumatic hand flexor tendon injuries. METHOD: Sixty-five patients
older than 16 years who underwent surgical intervention after flexor tendon
injuries were enrolled. Reliability was assessed by internal consistency (with
Cronbach's-alpha) and test-retest intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC).
Construct validity was estimated correlating the scale with the DASH and VAS-hd.
Also responsiveness was estimated using standardised response mean (SRM) and
effect size (ES). RESULT: Mean age of the patients was 30.25 +/- 11.07 years and
totally 140 fingers were evaluated. Cronbach's-alpha and ICC values of DHI were
found to be 0.87 and 0.99, respectively. In validation study, highly significant
correlation was detected between DHI with DASH and VAS-hd (r = 0.86, r = 0.54, p
< 0.0001, respectively). SRM values and ES values (excepting workplaces subgroup
score) were higher than 0.80 for total and all subgroup scores. CONCLUSION: DHI
is a reliable, valid questionnaire to assess hand-related activity limitation in
patients with traumatic hand flexor tendon injuries. Also, due to its high level
responsiveness DHI can be used for assessing the clinical course of the traumatic
hand flexor tendon injured patient.

Langue : ANGLAIS