The Patient-Rated Elbow Evaluation and the American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons-Elbow form capture aspects of functioning that are important to patients with elbow injuries

Joshua I Vincent; Joy C MacDermid; Graham J W King; Ruby Grewal

doi:10.1016/j.jht.2020.02.001

The Patient-Rated Elbow Evaluation and the American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons-Elbow form capture aspects of functioning that are important to patients with elbow injuries

J Hand Ther. 2021 Jul-Sep;34(3):415-422. doi: 10.1016/j.jht.2020.02.001. Epub 2020 Apr 21.

Authors

Joshua I Vincent¹, Joy C MacDermid², Graham J W King³, Ruby Grewal³

Affiliations

¹ School of Physical Therapy, Western University, London, ON, Canada; Roth-McFarlane Hand and Upper Limb Centre, St. Joseph's Hospital, London, ON, Canada. Electronic address: jisrael2@uwo.ca.
² School of Physical Therapy, Western University, London, ON, Canada; Roth-McFarlane Hand and Upper Limb Centre, St. Joseph's Hospital, London, ON, Canada; Department of Surgery, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada.
³ Roth-McFarlane Hand and Upper Limb Centre, St. Joseph's Hospital, London, ON, Canada; Department of Surgery, Western University, London, ON, Canada.

PMID: 32327289
DOI: 10.1016/j.jht.2020.02.001

Abstract

Study design: This is a cross-sectional study.

Introduction: The Patient-Rated Elbow Evaluation (PREE) and the self-report section of the American Shoulder Elbow Surgeons-elbow form (pASES-e) are two important elbow-specific self-report measures used in routine clinical practice.

Purpose of the study: To use the International Classification of Functioning Disability and Health (ICF) to link aspects of functioning that are reported using the Patient-Specific Functional Scale by a cohort of patients with elbow disorders and compare it to the content of the PREE and the pASES-e.

Methods: One hundred patients with a variety of elbow disorders (mean age and SD 53.88 (14.51); M: F 48: 52) were recruited from the Roth-McFarlane Hand and Upper Limb Centre. They self-reported important aspects of functioning using the Patient-Specific Functional Scale. These concerns were linked to the ICF using formal linking procedures. These ICF categories were compared to the categories related to the PREE and the pASES-e. Linking was carried out by two independent raters, and agreement was calculated using percentage agreement.

Results: A total of 423 self-reported functional activities were linked to 25 second-level ICF categories from the activity and participation domain. Commonly reported activities were D640 doing housework (52%); D540 dressing (47%); and D475 driving (35%). PREE had better coverage of the patient concerns (71%) than pASES-e (50%). D475-driving (35%) and D440-fine hand use (24%) were the 2 major categories that were not captured by the questionnaires. Agreement between the raters was 90.5%.

Discussion: This study established that the PREE and the pASES-e were able to capture aspects of functioning important to patients and that align with the ICF, with this happening to a greater extent on the PREE than the pASES-e. Because all patients reported concerns from the activity and participation section ('d' categories) of the ICF, this validated that these PROMs measure this conceptual domain.

Conclusion: The PREE provided more comprehensive coverage of patients' functional concerns than the pASES-e.

Keywords: Elbow disorders; ICF; PREE; PSFS; pASES-e.

MeSH terms

Activities of Daily Living
Cross-Sectional Studies
Disability Evaluation
Elbow*
Humans
International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health
Reproducibility of Results
Shoulder
Surgeons*
Surveys and Questionnaires
United States