Comprehensive assessment of clinical outcome and quality of life after total shoulder arthroplasty: usefulness and validity of subjective outcome measures.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the physiometric and psychometric properties of clinical, generic, and condition-specific assessment instruments. To describe patients' outcome after total shoulder arthroplasty.
METHODS: Forty-three patients were assessed in a 5-6-year cross-sectional catamnesis.
RESULTS: With regard to shoulder joint stability, pain, general physical health, and mental health, the patients showed scores comparative to normative scores. Significant functional limitation was evidenced by low mean scores on the specific function scales (e.g., Disability of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand questionnaire score = 64.0, normative score = 86.6). There were high correlations among the joint-specific scales (up to 0.93) and moderate correlations between these and the generic and clinical scales. Factor analysis identified 3 different assessment domains.
CONCLUSION: The patients' quality of life (QOL) was high and not affected by impairment in some specific functional abilities. Physical QOL, mental QOL, clinical assessment, condition-specific measures, and generic measures were identified as separate domains, all of which are required for a comprehensive and sophisticated assessment in practical clinical routine.