The responses are tallied and aggregated into one score with a total possible score of 100. A high score reflects a
poor outcome. The ICC reflecting the reliability of the PRHWE is 0.97 (95% CI 0.95 to 0.98) ( MacDermid et al 1998). A between-group difference of 5 points was deemed sufficiently important to justify the expense and inconvenience of the splinting regimen. Active range of motion: Active range of wrist flexion, extension, radial deviation, and ulnar deviation were measured with a goniometer using a standardised technique ( Adams et al 1992). The ICCs reflecting the reliability of goniometric measures of active wrist range are: Fluorouracil nmr extension, 0.85 (95% CI 0.77 to 0.93); flexion, 0.9 (95% CI 0.85 to 0.95); radial
deviation, 0.86 (95% CI 0.79 to 0.93); and ulnar deviation, 0.78 (95% CI 0.67 to 0.89) ( Horger 1990). A between-group difference of 10 degrees was deemed sufficiently important to justify the expense and inconvenience of the splinting regimen. Canadian Occupational Performance Measure(COPM): The COPM ( Law et al 1990) is designed to quantify patients’ perspectives about self-care, productivity and leisure. Participants were asked to identify key activities important to them that they were unable to perform as a consequence of wrist contracture. The participant then provided two scores on a 10-point scale: for the ability to perform the activity, and for the satisfaction with their ability to perform the activity. The Spearman Rho correlation coefficient reflecting the reliability of the testing procedure AZD2281 mouse to measure performance is 0.89, and satisfaction is 0.88 ( Cup et al 2003). A between-group difference of 2 points for performance and satisfaction was deemed sufficiently important to justify the expense and inconvenience of the splinting regimen ( Law 2004). A power calculation indicated that a sample size of 40 was required to provide
a 95% probability TCL of detecting a 10 deg between-group difference in passive wrist extension. This calculation was based on the best available evidence indicating an expected standard deviation of 10 deg. These calculations assume an alpha of 0.05 and drop-out of 15%. All data were reported as means (SD) unless otherwise stated. Data for passive wrist extension, active wrist extension, flexion, radial and ulnar deviation, and PRHWE were analysed using separate linear regression models with initial values entered as covariates. The performance and satisfaction items of the COPM were analysed using the ‘cendif routine in the Stata software to derive the 95% CIs for median between-group differences. This method does not make assumptions about the distribution of the data. The results were interpreted with respect to sufficiently important differences. The characteristics of the participants in each group are detailed in Table 1.