No need to use both Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand and Constant-Murley score in studies of midshaft clavicular fractures

Background and purpose - Most newer randomized studies examining plate fixation and nonoperative treatment of midshaft clavicular fractures utilize both Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand (DASH) and Constant-Murley score (CS) in the evaluation of patient outcomes. Compared with DASH, the use...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Acta orthopaedica Vol. ahead-of-print; no. ahead-of-print; pp. 1 - 5
Main Authors: Qvist, Andreas H, Vaesel, Michael T, Moss, Carsten, Jakobsen, Thomas, Jensen, Steen L
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Sweden Taylor & Francis 15-09-2020
Medical Journals Sweden, on behalf of the Nordic Orthopedic Federation
Medical Journals Sweden
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Background and purpose - Most newer randomized studies examining plate fixation and nonoperative treatment of midshaft clavicular fractures utilize both Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand (DASH) and Constant-Murley score (CS) in the evaluation of patient outcomes. Compared with DASH, the use of CS requires on-site trained personnel and patient visits to obtain the score. The use of both DASH and CS should provide extra value compared with the use of a single functional outcome score; if this value is not provided, the combined use is not necessary. We evaluated the agreement between DASH and CS in patients with displaced midshaft clavicular fractures. Patients and methods - We used prospectively collected data from 146 patients enrolled in a randomized study comparing operative and nonoperative treatment of midshaft clavicular fractures. We determined correlation between DASH and CS at all follow-up points and calculated mean bias in the Bland-Altman plot. Results - We found moderate to high correlation (from 0.82 at 6 weeks' follow-up to 0.58 at 1-year follow-up) between DASH and CS score, and a small bias (2.21 [95% CI 0.22-4.20]) in the Bland-Altman plot. Interpretation - In patients with displaced midshaft clavicular fractures DASH and CS measures the same degree of disability. Unless specifically studying strength and range of motion, we recommend the sole use of DASH as it would eliminate potential observer-induced bias along with removing the economic and logistic burden of obtaining CS without compromising the value of the collected data.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:1745-3674
1745-3682
DOI:10.1080/17453674.2020.1820274