Quality of life in flexible painful flatfoot treated by anterograde calcaneo-stop procedure: The patient’s and family’s perspective

Abstract

Purpose This study aimed to evaluate the quality of life and satisfaction about the surgical treatment in patients with symptomatic flexible flatfoot. Methods The Oxford Ankle Foot Questionnaire for children (one to fill in before the surgical correction and another 6–12 months after the screw’s removal), the PedsQLTM Healthcare Satisfaction Generic Module and the PedsQLTM General Well-Being Scale were administered to all patients who underwent the anterograde calcaneo-stop procedure for flexible painful flatfoot between January 2012 and December 2015. Results One hundred forty patients were sent the questionnaires and 74 (40 male and 34 female) of them responded. The surgical correction was performed at a medium age of 11,84±1,65 years. When the Oxford Ankle Foot Questionnaire for children scores before surgical correction and after the screw removal were compared, the latter scored significantly higher for all domains. Healthcare satisfaction was good in all families. Most of the patients scored medium-high on the PedQLTM General Well-Being both when asked about themselves (mean 86,50±7,44) and in general about their health (76,06±12,32). Conclusion Our results confirmed that flexible painful flatfoot is significantly affecting the quality of life of children and that the anterograde calcaneo-stop procedure is a valuable technique, which improves their quality of life and the family wellbeing.

Really Asymptomatic? Health-Related Quality of Life and Objective Clinical Foot Characteristics among 5–10-Year-Old Children with a Flexible FlatFoot

“…This may be explained by the parents' worries about their children's future in connection with pain in lower limbs, possible foot deformities, and tibialis posterior tendon disfunction [48][49][50][51][52]. Furthermore, if the painless FF becomes symptomatic and is expressed in the perception of pain, the health-related QoL of children is significantly affected and leads to conservative or surgery treatment options [53,54]. Parents' concerns about the child's flatfoot posture causes them to make frequent visits to ambulatory clinics for a podiatric consultation [8].…”