The D-Foot, for prosthetists and orthotists, a new eHealth tool useful in useful in risk classification and foot assessment in diabetes

Journal article, 2017

Background: The prevention and care of foot problems in diabetes begins with a risk classification. Today, the prosthetists and orthotists (CPO) and other health care professionals assess the risk of developing foot ulcers more or less subjectively. The objective of the study was to describe the construction of an eHealth tool, the D-Foot, which generates a risk classification. The reliability of the D-Foot was tested.
Methods: The D-Foot includes 22 clinical assessments and four self-reported questions. The content validity was assured by expert group consensus and the reliability was assessed through an empirical test-retest study. Inter- and intra-rater reliability was calculated using patients referred to four departments of prosthetics and orthotics (DPO).
Results: The agreement for the risk classification generated using the D-Foot was 0.82 (pooled kappa 0.31, varying from 0.16 to 1.00 at single DPOs). The inter-rater agreement was > 0.80 regarding the assessments of amputation, Charcot deformity, foot ulcer, gait deviation, hallux valgus/hallux varus and risk grade. The inter- and intra-rater agreements for the discrete measurements were > 0.59 and > 0.72 respectively. For continuous measurements, the inter- and intra-rater correlation varied (0.33-0.98 and 0.25-0.99 respectively).
Conclusion: The D-Foot gave a reliable risk foot classification. However, there was a variation in the inter- and intra-rater reliability of the assessments included and refinements are needed for variables with low agreement. Based on the results, the D-Foot will be revised before it is implemented in clinical practice.