Evaluation of two self-referent foot health instruments

Two foot health inventories, the Foot Function Index and the Foot Health Status Questionnaire, are evaluated in terms of the developmental procedures used to create them. Both instruments have a number of deficiencies with regard to the initial stages of their development and with their purported reliability and validity. These deficiencies indicate that these instruments may have limited value and that in both clinical and research situations they may not produce sufficiently accurate or informative results. Given that these instruments are typical of many self-referent instruments used in health contexts, clinicians and researchers should carefully evaluate the credentials of such instruments before using them. This article demonstrates how such evaluations might be conducted.