Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Disability Grading Survey – available in French and Portuguese


Leprosy Mailing List – January 28th, 2012
Ref.:    Disability Grading Survey – available in French and Portuguese
From:  C Smith, Aberdeen, Scotland, UK

Dear Salvatore,
We have now translated the disability survey into French and Portuguese.  Could you post it on the LML please?
Cairns Smith
School of Medicine and Dentistry,
University of Aberdeen,
Polwarth Building,
Foresterhill,
Aberdeen AB25 2ZD,
Scotland, UK
Telephone - (44) 1224 437266
Further information
Accurate assessment of disability due to leprosy using the WHO Disability Grading is important.  It is used to monitor diagnosis (it indicates whether diagnosis is early or late) and it is used as an indicator of the effectiveness of treatment (the progress of patients during MDT is monitored using the WHO disability grading).   
The WHO disability grade is a simple method to assess impairments in the Hands, Eyes and Feet of patients taking MDT.  It is described in the Operational Guidelines for the Enhanced Global Strategy (2011-2015) – see page 22 – 25.  The overall WHO Disability Grade (the WHO maximum Disability Grade) should be recorded for each patient, but it is also recommended that a patient’s progress through treatment should be assessed using the EHF score. The EHF score is when the grading for both eyes, both hands and both feet are added together. 
It is important that the WHO Disability Grades are accurate and reliable.  There is wide variation in the disability grading between and within countries.  This may be due to real differences or due to differences in the way the Grading is implemented.   We would like to check to see if disability assessments are conducted and recorded in the same way everywhere. To help assess this situation, we would like as many people as possible to complete the following 20 questions (your answers will be completely anonymous).  We will circulate the answers on the LML

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