Aim: The aim of this study was to assess long-term outcomes and complications associated with conservative and operative treatment of distal radius fractures and to determine if restoration of radio-graphic parameters influences functional outcomes.
Introduction: Distal radius fractures (DRFs) are common injuries associated with many complica-tions. Numerous studies suggest that operative treatment with anatomic reduction and restoration of radiographic parameters leads to better functional outcomes than nonsurgical treatment.
Materials and Methods: We enrolled 207 patients with isolated DRF (mean age 64 ± 17.9 years, women 150 (72.5%)) to our retrospective, single-center study (101 treated operatively, 106 treated non-operatively). There were no significant differences in sex, age, AO type fracture between study groups. After 3.9 ± 1.6 years (mean ± SD) clinical, functional and radiological assessment was conducted using Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand (DASH), Patient Rated Wrist Evaluation (PRWE), 9-Hole Peg Test (9-HPT), grip and pinch strength tools.
Results: We found higher rates of malunion in nonoperative group (p <0.0001) and worse radiologic parameters such as volar tilt (p <0.0001), teardrop angle (p <0.0001) versus operative cohort. Nevertheless radiological parameters were not correlated with DASH and PRWE results. Moreover, patients aged 50 years and above treated operatively had similar functional outcomes (DASH, PRWE) to those treated nonoperatively.
Conclusions: Restoration of anatomic and thus radiologic parameters of radius may not be obligatory to achieve satisfactory functional outcome in patients with DRF aged 50 years or above. Patient is the most important ‘factor’ in determining appropriate and successful treatment method of distal radius fractures.

Objectives: Medical students are more susceptible to depression than other students. Moreover, students with the symptoms of depression statistically more often abuse drugs and have suicidal thoughts and anxiety. The level of stress and the factors that lead to in among medical students at Polish universities have not yet been measured. The aim of this study was to translate to Polish and validate the Perceived Medical School Stress Instrument (PMSS-PL) and to measure the resulting version’s psychometric abilities.

Materials and Methods: We validated the Polish translation of PMSS in accordance with the recommendations published by the Translation and Cultural Adaptation group of the Quality of Life Special Interest group of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research. The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10) was used as an external test to validate the PMSS-PL questionnaire. A total of 430 undergraduate medical students at the Medical College of Jagiellonian University took part.

Results: The mean PMSS-PL score was 36.43 and it varied from 13 to 65. The mean PSS-10 was 21.35. The internal reliability, as indicated by Cronbach’s alpha, was 0.803, which means there was internal reliability between PSS-10 and PMSS-PL. Moreover, all questions from PMSS-PL had a positive discri-mination power, so each question correlated positively with the other questions in PMSS-PL.

Conclusions: PMSS-PL may be used to psychometrically analyze the stress load on undergraduate medical students at Polish universities. The PMSS-PL may also be used as an external test for validating and calculating the reliability and accuracy of other psychometric instruments.