Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Disability Grading Survey


Leprosy Mailing List – January 13th, 2012
Ref.:    Disability Grading Survey
From:  C Smith, Aberdeen, Scotland, UK

Dear Salvatore,
Could you please post this survey on WHO disability grading on the LML and ask as many people as possible to complete the survey.  It is simple and will only take 5 minutes to complete.  Once it has been completed click the SUBMIT button at the bottom and an acknowledgement will be sent. 
Can everyone please complete the survey in the next couple of weeks and we will circulate the responses and answers on the LML.
Cairns Smith
School of Medicine and Dentistry,
University of Aberdeen,
Polwarth Building,
Foresterhill,
Aberdeen AB25 2ZD,
Scotland, UK
Telephone - (44) 1224 437266
Email: w.c.s.smith(at)abdn.ac.uk
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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