The patient-specific functional scale: validation of its use in persons with neck dysfunction

Area of Science:

• Rehabilitation Medicine
• Clinical Outcomes Assessment
• Musculoskeletal Disorders

Background:

• Self-report disability measures are increasingly vital for evaluating patient outcomes in clinical settings.
• Assessing the psychometric properties of patient-reported outcome measures is crucial for their effective application.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the reliability, validity, and sensitivity to change of the Patient-Specific Functional Scale (PSFS) in individuals with neck dysfunction.
• To compare the performance of the PSFS with the established Neck Disability Index (NDI) in this patient population.

Main Methods:

• 31 patients with cervical dysfunction completed the PSFS and NDI at baseline, within 72 hours, and after 1-4 weeks of treatment.
• Clinician's prognosis rating served as an a priori construct for expected change.
• Reliability, validity (correlation with NDI and prognosis), and sensitivity to change (correlation with NDI change scores and prognosis change) were analyzed.

Main Results:

• The PSFS exhibited excellent reliability (R = .92).
• Strong validity was shown through correlations with the NDI (r = .73-.83) and prognosis ratings (r = .52-.64).
• The PSFS demonstrated significant sensitivity to change, correlating well with NDI change scores (r = .79-.83) and prognosis (r = .46-.53).

Conclusions:

• The Patient-Specific Functional Scale is a reliable, valid, and sensitive tool for assessing disability and treatment-induced changes in patients with neck dysfunction.
• The PSFS's ability to detect change over time is comparable to the Neck Disability Index.
• Findings support the PSFS's utility as an efficient outcome measure, consistent with its use in low back pain and knee dysfunction studies.