A brief fatigue inventory of shoulder health developed by quality function deployment technique.
BACKGROUND
The purpose of this study was to develop a diagnostic outcome instrument that has high reliability and low cost. The scale, called the Shoulder Fatigue Scale-30 Items (SFS-30) risk assessment, was used to determine the severity of patient neck and shoulder discomfort.


METHODS
The quality function deployment (QFD) technique was used in designing and developing a simple medical diagnostic scale with high degree of accuracy.


RESULTS
Research data can be used to divide the common causes of neck and shoulder discomfort into 6 core categories: occupation, cumulative, psychologic, diseases, diet, and sleep quality. The SFS-30 was validated by using a group of individuals who had been previously diagnosed with different levels of neck and shoulder symptoms. The SFS-30 assessment determined that 78.57% of the participants experienced a neck and shoulder discomfort level above the SFS-30 risk curve and required immediate medical attention.


CONCLUSIONS
The QFD technique can improve the accuracy and reliability of an assessment outcome instrument. This is mainly because the QFD technique is effective in prioritizing and assigning weight to the items in the scale. This research successfully developed a reliable risk assessment scale to diagnose neck and shoulder symptoms using QFD technique. This scale was proven to have high accuracy and closely represents reality.
Liu
Shuo-Fang
SF
Department of Industrial Design, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan. liusf@mail.ncku.edu.tw
Lee
Yannlong
Y
Huang
Yiting
Y
D019937:Diagnostic Techniques and Procedures; D005260:Female; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D018763:Muscle Fatigue; D019547:Neck Pain / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis*; D010147:Pain Measurement; D017288:Pain Threshold; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D020069:Shoulder Pain / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis*