What is the Foot Function Index?

Physicians as well as scientists have produced a variety of tools to assist them to evaluate the outcome of almost all health problems and use them to help assess the impact of their health condition on the particular person. These are utilized in clinical practice to measure improvement in therapy and utilized in research to determine improvements coming from treatment options that are being researched. …[read more]

Background

Physicians as well as scientists have designed a variety of tools to help them measure the impact of just about all health conditions and make use of them to help measure the effect of that health problem on the particular person. This is used in clinical encounters to measure progress in therapy and made use of in scientific research to measure changes from treatment options which are being researched.

The Foot Function Index (FFI) was designed back in 1991 as a resource for clinicians and research workers to determine the effect of foot difficulties on function in terms of pain, disability as well as activity restriction of the people with the problem. It is a survey like application that was comprised of 23 questions. This insturment wad primarily developed in the perspective with the conditions with the foot which happen in rheumatoid arthritis, but it has become widespread in medical and scientific research settings for a number of foot problems. The FFI set of questions has twenty three items that are separated into three sub-groups based on patient attitudes in the 3 domains of discomfort, disability and activity limitation. The individual answers the survey to score each question on a rating from 0 (no pain or no problems) to ten (worst pain possible or so hard it needs help), that best details their feet over the prior 7 days. The general rating gives the Foot Function Index and there are also the ranking for each of the three sub-scales.

Of interest with all these kinds of tools that evaluate outcomes and associated issues is that is the instrument dependable and is it valid? A number of research projects around the test-retest reliability associated with the Foot Function Index overall as well as subscale scores have been documented with the statistics ranging from 0.87 to 0.69 and that is deemed good. It has been analyzed largely on individuals with rheumatoid arthritis and the summary of that research is that it’s a well-performing tool to work with in these patients. Robustness of any survey type tool is regarded as vitally important and is a means of measuring if the application is repeatable, for the reason that it gives as near as you possibly can to the same result should it be used again. Equally as important as reliability is the notion which the Foot Function Index is valid. Validity describes if the instrument is measuring exactly what it really claims that it is calculating. One study which checked out this for the FFI revealed a strong relationship involving the Foot Function Index total and sub-scale ratings along with other clinical measures of foot symptoms which verifies that there’s good criterion validity with the Foot Function Index. Another critical attribute of instruments such as this is that they would be the responsive. This shows that when the tool is needed again after a period of time where there has been a difference in the signs and symptoms, is the tool sensitive enough and responsive enough to pick up that alteration. The Foot Function Index has become rated favorably for responsiveness.

Since its initial development a changed form of the FFI has been produced to improve the attributes with the tool to make it a lot more in line with WHO recommendations. It has been interpreted this Foot Function Index into several different languages in which they have again been analyzed should it be dependable and valid in those different languages. Most of the basic research so far has confirmed that it is reliable.

The Foot Function Index revisited
Foot Function Index