BACKGROUND: There is no disease specific, reliable, and valid clinical measure of @entity924 . OBJECTIVE: To develop and test a questionnaire based instrument that would serve as an index of severity of @entity924 . METHODS: Item generation, item reduction, item scaling, and pretesting were used to develop a questionnaire to assess the severity of @entity924 . The final version consisted of eight questions that measured the domains of @entity158 , function in daily living, and sporting activity. Results range from 0 to 100, where 100 represents the perfect score. Its validity and reliability were then tested in a population of non-surgical @entity1 with @entity924 (n = 45), presurgical @entity1 with @entity924 (n = 14), and two normal control populations (total n = 87). RESULTS: The VISA-A questionnaire had good test-retest (r = 0.93), intrarater (three tests, r = 0.90), and interrater (r = 0.90) reliability as well as good stability when compared one week apart (r = 0.81). The mean (95% confidence interval) VISA-A score in the non-surgical @entity1 was 64 (59-69), in presurgical @entity1 44 (28-60), and in control subjects it exceeded 96 (94-99). Thus the VISA-A score was higher in non-surgical than presurgical @entity1 (p = 0.02) and higher in control subjects than in both @entity1 populations (p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The VISA-A questionnaire is reliable and displayed @entity1055 when means were compared in @entity1 with a range of severity of @entity924 and control subjects. The continuous numerical result of the VISA-A questionnaire has the potential to provide utility in both the clinical setting and research. The test is not designed to be diagnostic. Further studies are needed to determine whether the VISA-A score predicts prognosis.

The VISA-A questionnaire: a valid and reliable index of the clinical severity of XXXX .

@entity1 :: ('9606', 'Species') :: ['patients', 'patient'] @entity924 :: ('MESH:D052256', 'Disease') :: ['Achilles tendinopathy'] @entity1055 :: ('MESH:D000381', 'Disease') :: ['construct validity'] @entity158 :: ('MESH:D010146', 'Disease') :: ['pain']
@entity924 :: (MESH:D052256,Disease) :: ['Achilles tendinopathy']
