Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation
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To assess long-term health-related quality of life (HR-QoL) in patients who survived meningococcal septic shock in childhood, and their parents. ⋯ In patients who survived meningococcal septic shock in childhood significantly lower HR-QoL scores were found on the physical domains. This could indicate that the patient's disease episode and present health status had a negative impact on their present physical HR-QoL. Overall long-term HR-QoL in parents was significantly higher.
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Multicenter Study
Psychometric properties of the WHODASII in rehabilitation patients.
To evaluate function and disability, the WHO has developed the WHO Disability Assessment Schedule II (WHODASII), an instrument arising from the same conceptual basis as the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF). ⋯ The WHODAS II (German version) is a useful instrument for measuring functioning and disability in patients with musculoskeletal diseases, internal diseases, stroke, breast cancer, and depressive disorder. The results of this study support the reliability, validity, dimensionality, and responsiveness of the German version of the WHODASII. However, the reproducibility in test-retest samples of stable patients, as well as the question to what extent a summary score can be constructed, requires further investigation.
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A quality of life questionnaire is rarely adapted to an interview mode for people who mainly use spoken language in daily life. In Taiwan, the WHOQOL-BREF (Mandarin Chinese version) has been developed, as a self-administered questionnaire, but it cannot be applied to the majority of the elderly in Taiwan, who speak only Taiwanese (a dialect). This study adopted the audio player-assisted interview mode to develop a Taiwanese version of the WHOQOL-BREF specifically for Taiwanese-speaking elderly people, and followed with examinations of the reliability and validity of this version. ⋯ The Taiwanese interview version of the WHOQOL-BREF, except for the item related to dependence on medication, showed acceptable reliability (internal consistency, corrected item-domain correlation, and test-retest reliability) and validity (criterion-related, convergent, and discriminant validity). Confirmatory factor analyses supported the four-factor model of the Taiwanese interview version, providing evidence for construct validity. The results suggest that the Taiwanese audio player-assisted interview version of the WHOQOL-BREF was reliable and valid in assessing quality of life of elderly Taiwanese.
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In this study the reliability and validity of generic and disease-specific questionnaires has been assessed focusing on responsiveness. This is part of a study on the effects of recurrent acute otitis media (rAOM) on functional health status (FHS) and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in 383 children with rAOM participating in a randomized clinical trial. The following generic questionnaires were studied: 1. ⋯ Anchor-based methods resulted in a somewhat larger range of estimates of MCID than distribution-based methods. Combining distribution-based and anchor-based methods resulted in similar ranges for the minimally clinical important differences for generic and disease-specific questionnaires: 2-15 points on a 0-100 scale. Apart from the generic TAIQOL subscales, both generic and disease-specific questionnaires used in this study showed good psychometric qualities and responsiveness for use in clinical studies on children with rAOM.
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The work of firefighters involves the risk of exposure to the harmful effects of toxic substances as well as the possibility of enormous emotional shock from disasters, which may result in psychiatric impairments and a lower quality of life. Therefore, we examined quality of life, prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major depression, and the related risk factors for firefighters in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. ⋯ Firefighters have a higher estimated rate of PTSD, and the risk factors that affect quality of life and PTSD/major depression should encourage intervention from mental health professionals.