The longitudinal validity of the quick and full version of the Disability of the Arm Shoulder and Hand questionnaire in musculoskeletal hand outpatients

Abstract

Objective

Longitudinal validity refers to the ability of an outcome measure to detect clinically meaningful change in status, also referred to as responsiveness. Most recently the Department of Health has been a proponent of increased use of patient-reported outcome measures in evaluating the effectiveness of interventions to improve health. The Disability of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand (DASH) questionnaire is a comprehensive self-report measure that has been used well in rehabilitation. More recently a shortened version – the Quick DASH has been developed.

Methods

This study compared the longitudinal validity of the DASH and Quick DASH in a cohort of musculoskeletal outpatients with hand trauma and degenerative hand conditions attending an outpatient occupational therapy (OT) rehabilitation service. Responsiveness was calculated using effect sizes (ES) and standardized response mean (SRM) and paired t-tests to test for statistically significant differences.

Results

Twenty-two patients completed questionnaires. They received a mean of 12 weeks (SD = 7.5) of OT treatment. Mean baseline and discharge scores for DASH were 50.20 points (SD = 22.27) and 19.43 points (SD = 15.61), respectively and for the Quick DASH 50.43 (SD = 21.22) and 19.70 (SD = 16.01), respectively. Both the full DASH and Quick Dash yielded similar ES and SRM statistics (DASH: ES = 1.38; SRM = 1.93) (QDASH: ES = 1.51; SRM= 1.77) and t-tests showed statistically significant changes from baseline to discharge DASH (t = 9.06; P < 0.01); Quick DASH (t = 8.30, P < 0.01).

Conclusions

The Quick DASH and DASH demonstrated similarly high responsiveness in this patient population.