title: The Prosthetic Upper Extremity Functional Index: development and reliability testing of a new functional status questionnaire for children who use upper extremity prostheses.
abstract: The Prosthetic Upper Extremity Functional Index (PUFI) was developed by the authors' clinical research group to evaluate the extent to which a child actually uses a prosthetic limb for daily activities, the comparative ease of task performance with and without the prosthesis, and its perceived usefulness. The PUFI's test-retest and interrater reliability were evaluated with 24 children. Intraclass coefficients (ICCs) were calculated for each of four subscales of the PUFI--specifically, method of performance, ease of prosthetic use, usefulness of the prosthesis, and ease of performance without the prosthesis. The ICCs were greater than 0.65, indicating good test-retest reliability for the older-child respondents (n = 10) and fair to good reliability (ICCs, 0.40 to 0.84) for the parent respondents overall (n= 21). Interrater (child-parent) reliability was lower, with ICCs from 0.30 to 0.77. This finding was not unexpected, since a child and parent may rate in the context of different functional environments. The prosthesis was used 53% of the time by older children and more than 75% of the time by younger children. The results provide evidence that the PUFI has good test-retest reliability overall as a measure of a child's ability to perform upper extremity activities with a prosthesis.
authors.affiliation: Bloorview MacMillan Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. vwright@bloorviewmacmillian.on.ca
authors.forename: F V
authors.initials: FV
authors.lastname: Wright
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hubbard
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jutai
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Naumann
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000293:Adolescent; D001132:Arm; D001186:Artificial Limbs; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis