Content validity of the disability of the arm, shoulder, and hand questionnaire in a college-age patient population.

Objective: The Disability of the Arm, Shoulder, and Hand questionnaire (DASH) is a region-specific Patient Reported Outcome Measure and has been found to be valid and reliable. However, it has not been evaluated in a young patient population. Our objective was to understand how often the uninjured 'collegiate' population completes the specific tasks on the DASH.

Design: A questionnaire-based survey.

Methods: A total of 256 participants (age: 19.44 ± 1.83) completed the study. Participants were asked to track how often they completed 21 tasks taken from the DASH over a 14-day period. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and A Rasch partial-credit model.

Results: The 3 most commonly completed tasks are Recreational Activities in which you take some force or impact through your arm, shoulder, or hand (e.g., golf, hammering, tennis, etc.), Wash or blow-dry your hair, and Put on a pullover sweater while the least most commonly completed tasks were garden or do yard work, change a light bulb overhead, and sexual activities. Infit statistics ranged from .94 to 1.12, and Outfit ranged from .27 to 1.33. Person and item separation indices were 0.40 and 5.24, respectively. Person and item reliability indices were 0.14 and 0.96, respectively.

Conclusions: Findings from this study suggest that clinicians should be cautious when using the DASH with the 'college aged' patient population.