Background: Disability following hand and upper extremity conditions is common. Patient-reported outcome measures (PROs) are used to capture patients' status subjectively. This review has aimed to synthesis the literature regarding the extent and methodological quality of translation, cross-cultural adaptation, and psychometric properties of the hand and upper extremity disability PROs in the Persian language.
Methods: Seven electronic databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, Psychinfo, Scopus, ISI, Science direct, and Google Scholar) were searched until May 2020. Studies reporting cross-cultural adaptation and psychometric properties testing of the Persian validated disability PROs of the hand and upper extremity were identified. We appraised the eligible studies using Guidelines for the Process of Cross-cultural Adaptation of Self-report Measures and COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments (COSMIN) risk of bias checklist.
Results: Out of 98 identified records, 22 studies on 17 PROs were reviewed. Most of the PROs (47%) were region-specific and the others were condition-specific (29%) and multi-region (24%). Most of the studies (67%) followed 80 to 100% of the recommended steps for cross-cultural adaptation and translation of a PRO. The evidence of internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and construct validity was available for all the PROs. Structural validity, measurement error, and responsiveness were evaluated for five, six, and four PROs, respectively. The overall risk of bias ranged from "inadequate" to "very good" for all studies.
Conclusion: A reasonable number of PROs for the evaluation of hand and upper extremity disability are available in the Persian language. Although all of them are not of very good psychometric properties, they all have sufficient quality to be used in clinical settings.
Keywords: Disability; cross-cultural adaptation; hand and upper extremity; patient-reported outcome measure; psychometric properties.