Ostomy Adjustment Scale (OAS)

Clinical intent

The OAS is a 34-item questionnaire measuring the patient’s subjective adaptation to the physical, psychological, and social changes that occur after ostomy surgery. It also contains statements about the patient’s care of their ostomy, their opinions about the instructions they received about their ostomy, and their feelings about the SCN as well as the surgeon responsible for their ostomy surgery.

Subscales

Clinical judgement and psychometric tests suggest that the OAS can be divided into seven subscales. In clinic practice, both the single items version and the version with subscales may promote patient-centred follow-up.

1. Daily activities (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 32)
2. Knowledge and skills (21, 22)
3. Self-esteem (9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 26, 28, 31)
4. Psychological/existential (11, 16, 17, 25, 29, 33)
5. Health (23, 24, 34)
6. Health professionals (18, 19, 20)
7. Sexuality (8, 27, 30)

Scoring

All items are scored on a Likert scale from 1 (strongly agree) to 6 (strongly disagree); some statements are expressed negatively, and their raw scores are therefore converted by subtracting from 7 before the analysis.

• Item 3
• Item 6
• Item 9
• Item 10
• Item 11
• Item 13
• Item 14
• Item 16
• Item 17
• Item 19
• Item 20
• Item 23
• Item 24
• Item 25
• Item 26
• Item 27
• Item 30
• Item 31

Calculation

(Subscale) Total Score

The total score is determined by summing all 34 item scores. The total score for a given subscale is determined by summing all item scores in a given subscale.

(Subscale) Mean score

The mean score is determined by dividing the total score divided by the number of items that were answered. The mean score for a subscale is determined by dividing the total score of the subscale divided by the number of items that were answered in that subscale.

References

[1] Indrebø KL, Aasprang A, Olsen TE, Andersen JR. Psychometric Properties of New Subscales of the Ostomy Adjustment Scale: A Cross-Sectional Study. Patient Relat Outcome Meas. 2021;12:65-75 https://doi.org/10.2147/PROM.S300604