title: Evaluation of patient characteristics as predictors of health status in knee osteoarthritis patients referred for physical therapy.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The purpose of this cross sectional study was to estimate the contributions of patient characteristics to variation in joint-specific and generic health status in knee osteoarthritis (OA) patients referred for physical therapy.
  
  
  METHODS
  The Portuguese Knee injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS) and Medical Outcomes Study - 36 item Short Form (SF-36) questionnaires, and a form for the patient characteristics (gender, age, body mass index, profession, professional situation, educational level, marital status, duration of knee OA, involved knee and walking aids) were self-administered to 377 subjects with symptomatic knee OA (282 females, 95 males; age: 67.8 ± 8.2 years).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Multiple stepwise regression analyses revealed that patient characteristics explained only 9.4% to 19.7% of the variance in KOOS subscales scores, and only 1.0% to 17.2% of the variance in SF-36 subscales scores.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Therefore, it can be concluded that the patient characteristics studied were limited predictors of joint-specific and generic health status in knee OA patients referred for physical therapy.
authors.affiliation: Technical University of Lisbon, Faculty of Human Kinetics, Portugal. ruigoncalves@estescoimbra.pt
authors.forename: Rui Soles
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Gonçalves
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cabri
authors.forename: J P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Pinheiro
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D020370:Osteoarthritis, Knee / Q000628:therapy; D026741:Physical Therapy Modalities; D012017:Referral and Consultation