Translation and Validation of 'Foot Health Status Questionnaire' in Dutch

Area of Science:

• Orthopedics
• Health Measurement
• Rehabilitation

Background:

• Foot and ankle conditions significantly impact patient quality of life.
• Validated patient-reported outcome measures are crucial for assessing treatment efficacy.
• The Foot Health Status Questionnaire (FHSQ) is a widely used instrument for evaluating foot health.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a Dutch version of the Foot Health Status Questionnaire (FHSQ-NL).
• To evaluate the measurement properties of the FHSQ-NL according to COSMIN standards.
• To determine the suitability of the FHSQ-NL for assessing foot health in a Dutch population.

Main Methods:

• Translation and cultural adaptation of the FHSQ into Dutch.
• Cross-sectional study involving 103 patients with foot and ankle conditions.
• Assessment of reliability (ICC, Cronbach's alpha), smallest detectable change (SDC), and construct validity (Spearman's correlation).

Main Results:

• The FHSQ-NL demonstrated good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha 0.61-0.91) for most domains.
• Test-retest reliability (ICC 0.47-0.77) and individual-level SDC (35.1-60.6) were suboptimal.
• Group-level SDC (5.0-8.6) and construct validity (75% of hypotheses confirmed) were adequate.

Conclusions:

• The FHSQ-NL is a reliable measure for internal consistency and group-level smallest detectable change.
• Suboptimal individual-level reliability suggests the FHSQ-NL is more appropriate for group-level evaluations.
• The FHSQ-NL can be a valuable tool for assessing foot health in Dutch populations at a group level.