Reliability and validity testing of the Michigan Hand Outcomes Questionnaire

Area of Science:

• Orthopedics
• Rehabilitation Medicine
• Health Outcomes Research

Background:

• Patients with hand disorders require validated instruments to measure health status and treatment outcomes.
• Existing generic health status questionnaires may not adequately capture the specific domains relevant to hand function and patient experience.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and psychometrically evaluate the Michigan Hand Outcomes Questionnaire (MHQ) for assessing health state domains in patients with hand disorders.
• To establish the reliability and validity of the MHQ as a patient-reported outcomes measure.

Main Methods:

• Development of the MHQ using psychometric principles, starting with 100 questions and reducing to 37 items via factor analysis.
• Administration of the MHQ and the Short Form-12 to 200 patients at a university hand surgery clinic.
• Rigorous reliability (test-retest, internal consistency) and validity (construct, discriminate) testing of the MHQ.

Main Results:

• The 37-item MHQ demonstrated strong psychometric properties, supporting 6 hypothesized health state domains.
• High test-retest reliability (Spearman's correlation 0.81-0.97) and internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha 0.86-0.97) were observed.
• Evidence of construct validity was found through scale correlations, and discriminate validity was shown by differentiating patient groups.

Conclusions:

• The Michigan Hand Outcomes Questionnaire (MHQ) is a reliable and valid instrument for measuring hand health outcomes.
• The MHQ can be administered in clinical settings with minimal patient burden.
• The MHQ is a valuable tool for evaluating outcomes in hand surgery patients.