The Simple Shoulder Test Is Responsive in Assessing Change Following Shoulder Arthroplasty

Abstract

Shoulder arthroplasty (SA) is an accepted means of pain relief and improving function in patients with advanced joint destruction. 35 Measures of physical impairment and selfreported function are commonly used to assess the outcomes of these procedures. Various self-reporting scales are available to measure the functional outcome of shoulder surgery, but only a few While the responsiveness of the SST has been established for rotator cuff repair, it has not been determined for patients undergoing arthroplasty.t MethoDS: Patients undergoing shoulder arthroplasty (n = 120) were evaluated prior to surgery and 6 months after. The evaluation included the SST, Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand questionnaire, range of motion, and isometric strength. Responsiveness to change was assessed using standardized response mean (SRM), while longitudinal construct validity was evaluated using Pearson correlation. Receiver operating characteristics curves were plotted to determine clinically important difference of SST.t reSUltS: The SST and Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand questionnaire were highly responsive (SRM, 1.70) for this population. For the assessment of impairment, range of motion (SRM, 0.64-1.03) was moderately to highly responsive, while isometric strength was minimally to moderately responsive (SRM, 0.32-0.69). The clinically important difference of the SST was established at 3.0 SST points. Pearson correlations indicated moderate associations between the change scores of the SST and the Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand questionnaire (r = 0.49).t ConClUSionS: The SST has been previously shown to be valid and highly reliable. The present results show that the SST is also responsive following shoulder arthroplasty and that it has a clinically important difference of 3.0 SST points. This should provide confidence to clinicians who wish to use a brief shoulder-specific measure in their practice.

Simple shoulder test and Oxford Shoulder Score: Persian translation and cross-cultural validation

“…Patients reported the questions of the scales were relevant and clear for shoulder disorders. This finding confirms the acceptability and face validity of the PSST and the POSS in line with the original English and translated versions of the scales (SST: [10,13,[15][16][17][18][19]37]; OSS: [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27]38]). Responding to all questions of the scales indicates that both the PSST and POSS can accurately evaluate a patient's function and disability.…”

“…The total scores for SST range from 0 (worst or extreme limitations in physical function) to 12 (best or no physical limitation) which can be transformed to a 0 (worst function)-100 (best function) scoring system calculated as: (number of ''yes'' responses/number of completed questions) 9 100 = % ''yes'' responses [12]. The SST is reliable, valid, and responsive [10,13,14]. The SST has been validated in Lithuanian [15], Italian [16], Dutch [17], Portuguese-Brazilian [18], and Spanish [19].…”

Outcome and value of reverse shoulder arthroplasty for treatment of glenohumeral osteoarthritis: a matched cohort

“…An a priori power analysis suggested that a study group with a minimum of 22 patients who underwent RSA and a matched group of 88 patients (1:4 ratio) who underwent TSA for a diagnosis of GHOA would be necessary to detect a minimum clinically important difference of 12 points on the American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons (ASES) scoring system and 2 points on the Simple Shoulder Test (SST). 34,42 Variance was estimated to be 18 points on the basis of an analysis of outcomes across all RSAs performed by the senior author (M.A.F.) during the study time frame.…”

What Factors are Associated With Clinically Important Improvement After Shoulder Hemiarthroplasty for Cuff Tear Arthropathy?

“…Prior studies generally have used the limited goals criteria of Neer et al [15] or postoperative outcome scores alone without preoperative data, rather than minimum clinically important improvement in a functional outcome score. The Simple Shoulder Test (SST) [11] is a patient-reported outcome score with shown responsiveness and construct validity for shoulder arthritis [17]. A clinically important percentage of maximum possible improvement (%MPI) has been defined as an improvement of 30% of the total possible improvement on the 12-point scale (with higher scores representing better results) [6,12].…”