• Yoko Yabuno, Yusuke Naito, Mitsuru Ida, Soshiro Ogata, and Masahiko Kawaguchi.
• Department of Anaesthesiology, Nara Medical University, Nara, Japan.
• Br J Surg. 2024 Dec 24; 112 (1).

BackgroundThe WHO Disability Assessment Schedule (WHODAS) 2.0 is widely used for detecting postoperative functional disability. Its responsiveness for detecting disability has been evaluated at 1 year after surgery, with no long-term evaluation. The aim of this study was to examine the responsiveness of the WHO Disability Assessment Schedule in detecting functional disability at 5 years after surgery.MethodsThis study was a secondary analysis of a prospective observational study. Patients were enrolled who were aged 55 years or older and underwent elective non-cardiac surgery under general anaesthesia. They were asked to complete the 12-item WHO Disability Assessment Schedule and the Medical Outcome Study Short Form questionnaires before surgery and at 5 years after surgery. The correlation between changes in WHO Disability Assessment Schedule score and Medical Outcome Study Short Form physical score (change in physical component score) was evaluated using the Spearman rank correlation coefficient (ρ). The standardized response means were also calculated for typical subgroups for which functional disability was predicted to improve or decline and compared with the overall standardized response mean.ResultsIn the analysis, 2596 patients were included. A moderate correlation (ρ = -0.47) existed between changes in WHO Disability Assessment Schedule and physical Medical Outcome Study Short Form scores. The overall standardized response mean was 0.17. The standardized response means for the patients with functional disability predicted to improve ranged from -0.45 to -0.67, whereas those for patients predicted to decline ranged from 0.17 to 0.56. These findings indicated high responsiveness.ConclusionThe WHO Disability Assessment Schedule 2.0 has a high responsiveness at 5 years after surgery. It can be used to detect functional disability at 5 years after surgery.© The Author(s) 2025. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of BJS Foundation Ltd. All rights reserved. For commercial re-use, please contact reprints@oup.com for reprints and translation rights for reprints. All other permissions can be obtained through our RightsLink service via the Permissions link on the article page on our site—for further information please contact journals.permissions@oup.com.

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