[Patient-reported SEFAS: Questionnaire good evaluation method in foot and ankle disorders]

There is need for structured evaluation of disability before and after surgery. The patients' subjective aspects of their symptoms should be one part of this evaluation, preferably captured by patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs). There are several PROMs, either generic or region-specific questionnaires, but no » gold standard « for foot or ankle evaluation. We translated the Self-reported Foot and Ankle Score (SEFAS) and evaluated the psychometric properties of the score in terms of reliability, validity and responsiveness in patients with a variety of foot and ankle disorders. In this report we recommend a validation process for PROMs and report that SEFAS shows good results when doing this. As SEFAS is a PROM, the instrument seems suitable for use in national registers.