Development of a method to produce a valid and reliable foot mask for plantar pressure evaluation in children with clubfoot.

Abstract

The purposes of this article are to describe common masking inaccuracies, provide a standard methodology for correcting inaccuracies, and report intra/interclinician reliability when novice and experts mask foot pressures for children with clubfoot. Foot pressures from 26 children (ages 2.6-12.9 years) with unilateral clubfoot were utilized. Three raters were used for intra/interclinician reliability: one expert masker with 8 years of experience and two novice maskers. For children with unilateral clubfoot, automated masking was inaccurate in 4% of trials on the unaffected side and 24% of trails on the affected side. Novice and expert maskers report good-excellent reliability (interclass correlation coefficient range 0.61-1.0) when identifying and correcting inaccurate masks. To obtain accurate and reliable foot pressure data, it is recommended to first utilize an automasking technique and apply manual editing. This is the first study to present a standard methodology for foot pressure mask editing, the first to present the incidence of mask inaccuracies and the first to present foot pressure masking reliability in children with clubfoot.