title: Patient-important outcome for the assessment of fracture repair.
abstract: Current evidence indicates that fracture healing assessment is limited to the use of one or two domains (such as pain, range of motion or mobility) in any single study. Functional outcome measures, which include physician-rated or observer-based impairment ratings and patient self-reported or observer-based activity limitation measures, better position the effectiveness of a given intervention towards patient-important outcomes. Health status measures, for example, cover a wide-range of physical, emotional, and social health dimensions. In this paper, we will examine the utility of metrics to assess fracture healing that are important to both the patient and provider, with selected examples from the recent literature. We recommend outcome measures with established and verified reliability and validity. Policy-makers and other stakeholders need to have an accurate assessment of treatment outcome that includes changes in function over time-adequate measures, should be re-applied at periodic intervals.
authors.affiliation: St. Michael's Hospital, Department of Surgery, University of Toronto, Institute of Medical Sciences, Toronto, ON, Canada. Electronic address: amy.hoang.kim@mail.utoronto.ca.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hoang-Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, University of California, San Francisco, UCSF/SFGH Orthopaedic Trauma Institute, 2550 23rd Street, Bldg. 9, 2nd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94110, United States.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Miclau
authors.affiliation: Institute for Biomechanics of ETH Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Goldhahn
authors.affiliation: Onze Lieve Vrouwe Gasthuis, Joint Research, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: T H
authors.initials: TH
authors.lastname: Nijman
authors.affiliation: Onze Lieve Vrouwe Gasthuis, Joint Research, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: R W
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Poolman
mesh_terms: D017102:Fracture Healing / Q000502:physiology*; D050723:Fractures, Bone / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D061214:Patient Safety; D016896:Treatment Outcome
keywords: Fracture healing; Outcome and process assessment; Outcome assessment (health care); Patient; Safety; World health