VALIDATION-STUDY OF WOMAC - A HEALTH-STATUS INSTRUMENT FOR MEASURING CLINICALLY IMPORTANT PATIENT RELEVANT OUTCOMES TO ANTIRHEUMATIC DRUG-THERAPY IN PATIENTS WITH OSTEO-ARTHRITIS OF THE HIP OR KNEE

Abstract

Within the context of a double blind randomized controlled parallel trial of 2 nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs, we validated WOMAC, a new multidimensional, self-administered health status instrument for patients with osteoarthritis of the hip or knee. The pain, stiffness and physical function subscales fulfill conventional criteria for face, content and construct validity, reliability, responsiveness and relative efficiency. WOMAC is a disease-specific purpose built high performance instrument for evaluative research in osteoarthritis clinical trials.