Abstract

The aim of this study was to construct and validate a simple patient-related outcome score to quantify the disability caused by Dupuytren's disease (DD), thus enabling prioritisation of treatment, to allow reliable audit of surgical outcome and to support future research. The Southampton Dupuytren's Scoring System (SDSS) was developed in a staged fashion according to the recommendations of The Derby Outcomes Conference. (1) Item generation; (2) Item reduction; (3) Internal consistency; (4) Test–re-test; (5) Field management; (6) Sensitivity to change standardised response mean; and (7) Criterion validity: ability of the SDSS to measure what it is supposed to measure. Internal consistency measured with Cronbach's alpha indicated acceptable reliability. The test–re-test correlation coefficient showed high reliability with SDSS. Field-testing showed SDSS ratings to be higher than the QuickDASH (Disability of the arm, shoulder and hand) ratings evaluated by the patients who answered both questionnaires. Standardised response mean was more sensitive for SDSS compared with QuickDASH showing sensitivity to change. Criterion validity was used to assess if the SDSS was measuring what it is supposed to measure comparing the SDSS with QuickDASH. A highly significant correlation was found between the two scoring systems. SDSS is a disease-specific patient-related outcome measure with a good internal consistency and performs better than QuickDASH in terms of test–re-test reliability and sensitivity to change. SDSS shows better field-testing attributes suggesting that it is a relatively more patient and practitioner friendly scoring system. This study proposes to the SDSS is a useful patient-related outcome measure for DD.