A retrospective study on health-related quality of life in congenital clubfoot (with patient-reported outcomes)

Abstract

When treating clubfoot, doctors prefer objective measurements, while knowing the subjective quality of life of a patient is secondaryrather than observing the two in parallel. The aim was to highlight the significance of patient reporting in the quality of life questionnaires.This retrospective study included 75 patients with clubfoot (44 boys and 28 girls, mean age 12.45 (range 2-30 years; 3 missing).The treatment was typical in 55 patients (posteromedial release), while Ponseti method was used in 20 patients. The followingquestionnaireswere used: EQ-5D-3L and Clubfoot Disease Specific Instrument for Health Science, Rosenberg Scale for PsychologicalSapiens, and our own sociological questionnaire. The mean EQ-5D index was 0.86 and mean EQ-VAS was 79.92, scoring lower thanthe Hungarian population data. According to the results of the special quality of life questionnaire, foot pain and finding shoes that fitcaused the biggest problems for the study patients. The quality of life questionnaire results showed that finding shoes that fit withoutexacerbating pain was the biggest problem for study participants. The mean Rosenberg scale score was 22.2 (maximum 30) points.There were no significant findings in individual cases, however, correlations were found when examining low-self-evaluation participantsin the group. Internal consistency of the instruments employed was appropriate (Cronbach alpha: 0.831-0.939), and combinedquestionnaires used to identify each aspect as indicated by the medium and high Spearman correlation values (rs=0.539-0.916).Key words: clubfoot; quality of life; patient reported outcome measures