The Munich Shoulder Questionnaire (MSQ): development and validation of an effective patient-reported tool for outcome measurement and patient safety in shoulder surgery.

BACKGROUND

Outcome measurement in shoulder surgery is essential to evaluate the patient safety and treatment efficiency. Currently this is jeopardized by the fact that most patient-reported self-assessment instruments are not comparable. Hence, the aim was to develop a reliable self-assessment questionnaire which allows an easy follow-up of patients. The questionnaire also allows the calculation of 3 well established scoring systems, i.e. the Shoulder Pain and Disability Index (SPADI), the Constant-Murley Score (CMS), and the Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand (DASH) Score. The subjective and objective items of these three systems were condensed into a single 30-questions form and validated against the original questionnaires.

METHODS

A representative collective of patients of our shoulder clinic was asked to fill in the newly designed self-assessment Munich Shoulder Questionnaire (MSQ). At the same time, the established questionnaires for self-assessment of CONSTANT, SPADI and DASH scores were handed out. The obtained results were compared by linear regression analysis.

RESULTS

Fifty one patients completed all questionnaires. The correlation coefficients of the results were r = 0.91 for the SPADI, r = -0.93 for the DASH and r = 0.94 for the CMS scoring system, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS

We developed an instrument which allows a quantitative self-assessment of shoulder function. It provides compatible data sets for the three most popular shoulder function scoring systems by one single, short 30-item. This instrument can be used by shoulder surgeons to effectively monitor the outcome, safety and quality of their treatment and also compare the results to published data in the literature.