Assessing the functional outcomes of ankle fracture and its predictive factors following surgical treatment at Addis Ababa burn, emergency, and trauma (AaBET) hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2021: A 5-year retrospective cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND

Ankle fracture is a common injury that is treated at Addis Ababa Burn, Emergency, and Trauma Hospital. Previous studies show that there are mixed functional outcomes after surgically treated ankle fractures.

METHODS

After Ethical clearance was obtained from the ethical review committee of St. Paul Millennium Medical College, a retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted on 122 patients from September to October 2021. Patients fulfilling the inclusion criteria were called through phone and verbal consent was obtained, and the patients' responses were recorded with Olerud and Molander ankle outcome score (OMAS). For those study subjects who were unanswered to phone calls or non-functioning cell phones were repeated at least two times per week during the data collection period. The collected data were coded, entered, checked for its completeness, cleaned, and analyzed using SPSS Version 22. Descriptive statistics were presented with frequency, percentage, text, and graphs. Finally, the strength of association between  functional outcome of ankle fracture and independent variables were evaluated using the Chi-square test, and a P-value < 0.05 was declared to be statistically significant.

RESULTS

Out of the total 122 patients, 72.1% of study subjects were males, and the mean OMAS for males and females was 76.79, and 75.65, respectively. Among all ankle fractures, nearly two-thirds (63.1%) of them were closed fractures, which are initially stabilized with splinting, open reduction, and internal fixation (ORIF), and external fixation were 77%, 13.9%, and 9%, respectively, whereas 83.3% definitive management of operatively treated ankle fracture was open reduction and internal fixation. In this study, the score of Olerud and Molander was 82.9% patients 'good' or 'excellent,' whereas 10.5% and 4.5% were fair and poor, respectively. In the present study patients with 40 years and younger (p-value, 0.022) and early surgical treatment (p-value 0.02) were strongly associated with the positive functional outcome of ankle surgery.

CONCLUSION

Even though the surgical treatment of ankle fracture results in good postoperative functional outcomes, restores ankle function, and allows good mobility of the ankle joint, still some patients experience few restrictions in functional activities of 2-5-year post-surgical treatment.