Background: Patient-reported outcome (PRO) instruments measure a patient’s health status in a variety of domains, including physical, mental and social well-being. The delivery of such instruments has become an integral part of healthcare, commonly employed to assess treatment efficacy and outcomes in sports medicine. With the proliferation of mobile phones, administration of PROs across patient-friendly platforms (e.g. apps, text messaging) may increase completion rates, particularly among younger patients. The purpose of this study was to validate the collection of common knee PROs with text messaging in sports medicine, by correlating text messaging responses with traditional paper delivery in adolescents and young adults. Methods: Patients presenting to a hospital-based pediatric orthopaedic sports medicine clinic with a knee injury were enrolled in this prospective investigation. Patients were excluded if they were undergoing a same-day office procedure, underwent surgery within the previous 90 days, and/or had no access to a mobile phone. Paper versions of the Pediatric International Knee Documentation Committee (Pedi-IKDC) Subjective Knee Evaluation Form and the Pediatric Functional Activity Brief Scale (Pedi-Fab Scale) questionnaires were completed during the patients’ initial clinic visit. Over the next 72 hours, the patients subsequently completed the mobile phone portion of the study outside of the clinic (Figure 1), which included text message delivery of the Pedi-IKDC and Pedi-Fab Scale, assigned in a random order. Correlations between paper and text message delivery of the two PROs were assessed. Secondary analyses were conducted to examine overall completion time and associations between patient demographics and text compliance. Results: Of the 91 patients (Age M=16.0 ±2.0 years; 48% female) initially enrolled in the study, 55 (60.4%) completed the text Pedi-Fab Scale, 48 (52.7%) completed the text Pedi-IKDC, and 39 (42.9%) completed both PROs. Among the evaluable sample, the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) between the paper and mobile phone delivery of the Pedi-Fabs was 0.95 (95% CI, 0.91-0.97). The ICC between the paper and mobile phone delivery of the Pedi-IKDC was 0.96 (95% CI, 0.93-0.98). Average Pedi-Fab scores on paper (M=12.7) and mobile phone (M=12.3) were not significantly different (p=0.52). Similarly, average Pedi-IKDC scores on paper (M=68.8) and mobile phone (M=67.7) were not significantly different (p=0.41). A Bland-Altman plot and linear regression revealed there was no proportional bias between the mean and difference for the Pedi-Fab scores (p=0.55) and Pedi-IKDC scores (p=0.56). The average completion time for the text delivered Pedi-Fab and Pedi-IKDC were 102±224 minutes and 159±155 minutes, respectively. For Pedi-Fab, there were no patient demographics that were significantly associated with text completion. However, high school students (p=0.025), female sex (p=0.036), and race (p=0.002), were significantly associated with the text completion of Pedi-IKDC. In addition, order of the delivery of the questionnaires and paper scores were not associated with text completion for either survey. Conclusion: Text message delivery using mobile phones permits valid assessment of Pedi-IKDC and Pedi-Fabs scores in this prospective observational study. Questionnaire delivery by automated text messaging allows asynchronous response and may increase compliance among high school students while also reducing the labor cost of collecting PROs.
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