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[Metric properties of WOMAC questionnaires-original and reduced versions-to measure symptoms and Physical Functional
Sergio R López Alonso1, Carmen M Martínez Sánchez, Ana B Romero Cañadillas
1CS San Miguel, DS Costa del Sol, Torremolinos, Málaga, España. sergiolopezalonso@gmail.com
Objectives:
To determine the metric properties of the WOMAC questionnaire filled in over the telephone; and to obtain a reduced version of this questionnaire.
Design:
Descriptive study.
Setting:
"La Merced" (Osuna. Seville) and "Torrecárdenas" (Almeria) Hospitals.
Participants:
People suffering from hip and knee osteoarthritis and awaiting surgical intervention from October 2004 to November 2006.
Main Measurements:
Telephone interview, sociodemographic variables and Symptoms and Physical Functional Disability (WOMAC questionnaire) were collected.
Results:
A total of 311 people suffering from hip or knee osteoarthritis were included. Subjects were mostly women (82.63%) with a mean age of 70 years. Metric properties of the original and reduced WOMAC were as follows: All WOMAC items obtained a maximum value of 67.4% on endorsement frequency. Main components factorial analysis resulted in a communality of over 0.5 and 71.73% of total explained variance, with 5 factors -no conceptual meaning-. With a communality cut-off point of 0.8; 13 items were rejected and the total explained variance increased to 87.74% with 4 factors -conceptually sensible-. Varimax rotations were performed due to low correlation factors. Pearson correlation between the original and reduced WOMAC versions were 0.92. Reliability analysis obtained a Cronbach alpha value of 0.92 for original WOMAC and 0.82 for the reduced version.
Conclusion:
The original WOMAC questionnaire showed adequate metric properties to be used over the telephone on people suffering from hip and knee osteoarthritis. Furthermore, a reduced version of WOMAC with 11 items had better metric properties than the full version.
