the oxford ankle foot questionnaire for children - Isis Project No 4185

A new Health Outcomes Questionnaire is available from Isis tackling the assessment of children’s disability associated with foot and ankle problems. This new patient-reported questionnaire uniquely takes the views of both the child and parent/carer into account in the assessment.

The Oxford Invention

Common clinical assessment methods do not capture the patient perspective and may not accurately reflect how children function in their normal environments. The use of Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) has been shown to be useful for studies of the wellbeing of patients. Joint specific (foot and ankle) PROMs have been developed to tackle this requirement for adults but these conventional questionnaires have not been shown to be valid when used to assess children.

The Oxford Ankle Foot Questionnaire for Children is uniquely a patient-reported (by the child) and parent/carer-reported health status instrument used to assess the disability associated with foot and ankle problems in children aged 5 to 16 years. The scores from the 15-item questionnaire can be used to measure the effect of foot and ankle problems on three domains of children’s lives, namely physical, school and play, and emotional well being. In addition, the domain scales can be used to show responsiveness to interventions and indicate recovery. The questionnaire can be used with child patients affected by foot and ankle problems originating from congenital deformities, clinical syndromes, trauma or neuromuscular conditions.

Properties of the Oxford Ankle Foot Questionnaire for Children:

• The only condition-specific questionnaire designed and developed for use in assessing areas of importance to child patients with foot and ankle disabilities, uniquely capturing both the child’s and parent’s perspective
• Has undergone rigorous testing for validity, reliability and sensitivity to change and has been shown to be a robust tool for assessing foot and ankle disabilities
• Can be employed in surveys or clinical trials for foot and ankle patient groups and used to supplement other assessment methods
• Used to assess issues considered important to the child patient
• Has been shown to be highly responsive to interventions and can be used as an indicator for recovery
• Brief and easy to complete resulting in good return rates
• Easy to interpret scores

Using the Questionnaire

The Ankle Foot Questionnaire developed at Oxford is available for licence from Isis Innovation. Please contact the Isis Project Manager or email healthoutcomes@isis.ox.ac.uk. Alternatively, parties wishing to use the questionnaire can complete a licence request form at:

http://www.isis-innovation.com/licensing/healthoutcomes/health_outcome_request.html

 

Request Further Information: Project Number 4185 - The Oxford Ankle Foot Questionnaire for Children