Perception about braces in parents of children with clubfoot

To access the acceptability of Steenbeek brace by children undergoing clubfoot correction and their parents to ensure long-term compliance.

The cross-sectional study was conducted at the Indus Hospital, Karachi from October 2013 to March 2014. A trained researcher interviewed the person primarily responsible for bracing the child using a pre-coded questionnaire. Modified Orthotics Prosthetics User Survey for satisfaction with either the Mitchell brace of the Steenbeek brace was used. It included 11 questions in the Parent Bracing Satisfaction Survey. SPSS 21 was used for statistical analysis.

Interviews were completed with 110 primary caregivers among whom 90(81.8%) were mothers. Overall, 32(29.1%) children were using the Mitchell brace, 30(27.3%) the Steenbeek brace, 46(41.8%) had shifted from Mitchell to Steenbeek brace, and 2(1.8%) had shifted from Steenbeek to Mitchell brace. Median duration of current brace usage was 4 and 3.5 months for Steenbeek and Mitchell braces respectively. The mean age of the child was 1.4 ±0.7 years, and the mean of 4-point Likerts cale score of parent bracing satisfaction was 28.7±2.2 in children on the Mitchell brace versus 28.5±1.9 for those on Steenbeek brace (p=0.505). Overall, 82(74.5%) parents had favourable attitude towards braces in general, but there were no significant differences in the items except "brace is easy to put on" (p=0.040) and "durability between Mitchell and Steenbeek groups" (p=0.017).

There were no differences in satisfaction levels between the two types of brace users.