Health Qual Life Out
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Health Qual Life Out · Jan 2012
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative StudyThe validity and precision of the Leicester Cough Questionnaire in COPD patients with chronic cough.
A validated instrument to assess the effects of chronic cough on health status in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is currently not available. The Leicester Cough Questionnaire (LCQ) is a cough-specific health status questionnaire which is originally validated for a population of general patients presenting with chronic cough. We examined the psychometric performance of the LCQ in patients with COPD and chronic productive cough. ⋯ The LCQ is a valid, reliable, responsive instrument to measure health status in COPD patients with chronic productive cough.
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Health Qual Life Out · Jan 2012
Comparative StudyThe Achilles tendon total rupture score: a study of responsiveness, internal consistency and convergent validity on patients with acute Achilles tendon ruptures.
The Achilles tendon Total Rupture Score was developed by a research group in 2007 in response to the need for a patient reported outcome measure for this patient population. Beyond this original development paper, no further validation studies have been published.Consequently the purpose of this study was to evaluate internal consistency, convergent validity and responsiveness of this newly developed patient reported outcome measure within patients who have sustained an isolated acute Achilles tendon rupture. ⋯ A universally accepted outcome measure is imperative to allow comparisons to be made across practice. This is the first study to evaluate aspects of validity of this newly developed outcome measure, outside of the developing centre. The ATRS demonstrated high internal consistency and responsiveness, with limited convergent validity. This research provides further support for the use of this outcome measure, however further research is required to advocate its universal use in patients with acute Achilles tendon ruptures. Such areas include inter-rater reliability and research to determine the minimally clinically important difference between scores.All authors have read and concur with the content of this manuscript. The material presented has not been and will not be submitted for publication elsewhere, except as an abstract. All authors have made substantial contributions to all of the following: (1) the conception and design of the study, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content and (3) final approval of the submitted version. This research has been funded by Arthritis Research UK, no conflicts of interests have been declared by the authors.
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Health Qual Life Out · Jan 2012
Comparative StudyParental stress when caring for a child with cancer in Jordan: a cross-sectional survey.
Most studies report that being parents of a child with cancer is a stressful experience, but these have tended to focus on mothers and few have included both parents. Moreover, studies have focussed on families in Western countries and none have been published examining the psychological outcomes for parents living in an Arabic country.This research explores the stress levels of Jordanian parents caring for a child with cancer in order to identify the psychological needs of parents in this environment and to explore how mothers and fathers stress levels might differ. ⋯ This is the first study into the psychological outcomes for parents living in an Arabic country who care for a child with cancer. Both mothers and fathers with a child diagnosed with cancer reported higher stress levels than those from the normal Jordanian parent population. Mothers and fathers of children with cancer reported significantly different levels of stress to each other but models reveal significant contributions of the stress score of fathers upon mothers, and vice versa. The findings provide evidence of the need for psychological support to be developed for families caring for a child with cancer in Jordan.
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Health Qual Life Out · Jan 2012
Randomized Controlled TrialValidation study of the prototype of a disease-specific index measure for health-related quality of life in dementia.
Index measures for health-related quality of life (HRQoL) quantify the desirability (utility) of a certain health state. The commonly used generic index measure, e.g. EuroQol: EQ-5D, may underestimate relevant areas of specific diseases, resulting in lower validity. Disease-specific index measures on the other hand combine disease-specificity and quantification of perceived quality on several health domains of a certain disease into one single figure. These instruments have been developed for several diseases, but a dementia-specific HRQoL index instrument was not yet available. Facing the increasing individual and societal burden of dementia, specific HRQoL values with metric characteristics are especially useful because they will provide vital information for health outcome research and economic evaluations. ⋯ Professionals judged all domains as relevant. The DQI prototype proved valid and feasible for patients and caregivers and is appropriate for very mild to moderate dementia. The differences in concurrent correlations with generic health status instruments imply that the dementia-specific DQI health domains indeed provide different information. The finding that patient HRQoL measured with the DQI was lower supports this notion. The new DQI shows comparable psychometric properties to the best available dementia-specific (QOL-AD) and generic (EQ-5D +C) measures. Further research is needed to generate values in the general population for each of the possible DQI states and to derive an algorithm that converts the 5 separate DQI domain scores into one single DQI Index score. Introducing the DQI Index will advance dementia-related HRQoL measurement by overcoming the shortcomings of generic and non-index instruments. This will allow more unequivocal interpretation of subjective dementia HRQoL states in dementia research.
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Health Qual Life Out · Jan 2012
Comparative StudyPsychometric properties of the Sinhala version of the PedsQL™ 4.0 Generic Core Scales in early adolescents in Sri Lanka.
The concept Health related Quality of life (HRQOL) is increasingly recognized as an important health outcome measure in clinical and research fields. The present study attempted to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Sinhala version of the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory™ 4.0 (PedsQL™ 4.0) Generic Core Scales among adolescents in Sri Lanka. ⋯ The findings support the reliability and validity of the Sinhala version of the PedsQL™ 4.0 Generic Core Scales as a generic instrument to measure HRQOL among early adolescents in Sri Lanka in a population setting.