Matched Cohort Analysis of Elective Lumbar Spinal Fusion in Patients With and Without Parkinson’s Disease: In-hospital Complications, Length of Stay, and Hospital Charges

Assessment of functional patient-reported outcome following lumbar spinal fusion continues to be essential for comparing the effectiveness of different treatments for patients presenting with degenerative disease of the lumbar spine. When assessing functional outcome in patients being treated with lumbar spinal fusion, a reliable, valid, and responsive outcomes instrument such as the Oswestry Disability Index should be used. The SF-36 and the SF-12 have emerged as dominant measures of general health-related quality of life. Research has established the minimum clinically important difference for major functional outcomes measures, and this should be considered when assessing clinical outcome. The results of recent studies suggest that a patient's pretreatment psychological state is a major independent variable that affects the ability to detect change in functional outcome.

Download Full-text

Are the Roland Morris Disability Questionnaire and Oswestry Disability Index interchangeable in patients after lumbar spinal fusion?

Journal of Back and Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation ◽

10.3233/bmr-200206 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-7

Author(s):

R.F.M.R. Kersten ◽

J. Fikkers ◽

N. Wolterbeek ◽

F.C. Öner ◽

S.M. van Gaalen

Keyword(s):

Back Pain ◽

Spinal Fusion ◽

Outcome Measures ◽

Oswestry Disability Index ◽

Roland Morris Disability Questionnaire ◽

Leg Pain ◽

Lumbar Spinal Fusion ◽

Patient Reported ◽

Disability Questionnaire ◽

Lumbar Spinal

BACKGROUND: Low back pain is a common health problem for which there are several treatment options. For optimizing clinical decision making, evaluation of treatments and research purposes it is important that health care professionals are able to evaluate the functional status of patients. Patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) are widely accepted and recommended. The Roland Morris Disability Questionnaire (RMDQ) and the Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) are the two mainly used condition-specific patient reported outcomes. Concerns regarding the content and structural validity and also the different scoring systems of these outcome measures makes comparison of treatment results difficult. OBJECTIVE: Aim of this study was to determine if the RMDQ and ODI could be used exchangeable by assessing the correlation and comparing different measurement properties between the questionnaires. METHODS: Clinical data from patients who participated in a multicenter RCT with 2 year follow-up after lumbar spinal fusion were used. Outcome measures were the RMDQ, ODI, Short Form 36 – Health Survey (SF-36), leg pain and back pain measured on a 0–100 mm visual analogue scale (VAS). Cronbach’s alpha coefficients, Spearman correlation coefficients, multiple regression analysis and Bland-Altman plots were calculated. RESULTS: three hundred and seventy-six completed questionnaires filled out by 87 patients were used. The ODI and RMDQ had both a good level of internal consistency. There was a very strong correlation between the RMDQ and the ODI (r= 0.87; p< 0.001), and between the VAS and both the ODI and RMDQ. However, the Bland-Altman plot indicated bad agreement between the ODI and RMDQ. CONCLUSIONS: The RMDQ and ODI cannot be used interchangeably, nor is there a possibility of converting the score from one questionnaire to the other. However, leg pain and back pain seemed to be predictors for both the ODI and the RMDQ.

Download Full-text