[Development and validation of the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) Spine Score]

Area of Science:

• Orthopedics
• Spine Surgery
• Outcome Measurement

Background:

• Assessing patient outcomes after thoracolumbar fractures is crucial for treatment evaluation.
• Existing subjective rating scales may have limitations in reliability and validity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a new subjective rating scale, the VAS spine score, for patients with thoracolumbar fractures and fracture dislocations.
• To establish a reliable and valid tool for measuring subjective outcomes in this patient population.

Main Methods:

• Development of the VAS spine score, a 19-item scale using 100-mm visual analogue scales, measured via a computer-aided system.
• Reliability testing in 136 healthy volunteers (test-retest interval 24 h) and validity testing in 53 surgically treated patients with thoracolumbar injuries.
• Statistical analysis included correlation coefficients and Cronbach's alpha for reliability and internal consistency.

Main Results:

• The VAS spine score demonstrated high reliability in healthy volunteers (correlation coefficient 0.976, Cronbach's alpha 0.9117).
• Patients showed a significant decrease in score from pre-injury status to implant removal, with a subsequent increase at follow-up.
• The score proved to be a reliable and valid measure of subjective outcome in patients with thoracolumbar injuries.

Conclusions:

• The VAS spine score is a new, reliable, and valid tool for outcome measurement in thoracolumbar injuries.
• It facilitates the analysis of subjective outcomes and can be correlated with objective measures.
• The score is useful for comparative clinical studies evaluating different treatment methods.