The Michigan Hand Outcomes Questionnaire (MHQ-Swe) in patients with distal radius fractures—cross-cultural adaptation to Swedish, validation and reliability

BACKGROUND: The Michigan Hand Outcomes Questionnaire—MHQ—is a well-known self-assessment questionnaire, where patients’ own perception in terms of recovery, pain and the ability to return to activities of daily living is assessed. The purpose of the study was to translate and culturally adapt the Michigan Hand Outcomes Questionnaire to Swedish and to test the validity and reliability in patients with surgically treated distal radius fractures. METHODS: The cross-cultural adaptation and the translation process were conducted according to predefined guidelines. Seventy-eight patients with surgically treated distal radius fractures completed the translated version of the questionnaire on their six-week follow-up visit. RESULTS: The translation and cross-cultural adaptation process revealed no major linguistic or cultural issues. The internal consistency of the MHQ-Swe ranged from 0.77 to 0.94 at test 1 and from 0.81 to 0.96 at test 2 for all subscales, which indicates good internal consistency in the subscales. The hand function subscale revealed the lowest results and work performance the highest. The ICCs showed excellent test-retest reliability, ranging from 0.77 to 0.90 on all MHQ subscales and 0.92 on total score. The highest results for the ICC were seen in the satisfaction subscale (ICC = 0.90), while the lowest were seen in the aesthetic subscale (ICC = 0.77). The correlation analysis between the MHQ-Swe, PRWE and VAS showed a generally moderate to high correlation for all the subscales. CONCLUSIONS: The Swedish version of the MHQ, the MHQ-Swe, showed good validity and reliability and it is therefore an appropriate and relevant questionnaire for use in patients with surgically treated distal radius fractures. TRIAL REGISTRATION: FoU i VGR, Projectnumber: 208491, registered December 9, 2015.