Sleep medicine
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Multicenter Study Comparative Study
The Johns Hopkins telephone diagnostic interview for the restless legs syndrome: preliminary investigation for validation in a multi-center patient and control population.
To develop and validate a telephone diagnostic interview (the Johns Hopkins telephone diagnostic interview for restless legs, abbreviated TDI) for diagnosis of the restless legs syndrome (RLS). ⋯ The TDI is a sensitive, specific, and reliable instrument for diagnosing RLS by experienced interviewers in a brief, anonymous telephone encounter.
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Restless legs syndrome is a common yet frequently undiagnosed sensorimotor disorder. In 1995, the International Restless Legs Syndrome Study Group developed standardized criteria for the diagnosis of restless legs syndrome. Since that time, additional scientific scrutiny and clinical experience have led to a better understanding of the condition. Modification of the criteria is now necessary to better reflect that increased body of knowledge, as well as to clarify slight confusion with the wording of the original criteria. ⋯ The essential diagnostic criteria for restless legs syndrome were developed and approved by workshop participants and the executive committee of the International Restless Legs Syndrome Study Group. Criteria were also developed and approved for the additional aforementioned groups.
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Multicenter Study
Validation of the International Restless Legs Syndrome Study Group rating scale for restless legs syndrome.
There is a need for an easily administered instrument which can be applied to all patients with restless legs syndrome (RLS) to measure disease severity for clinical assessment, research, or therapeutic trials. The pathophysiology of RLS is not clear and no objective measure so far devised can apply to all patients or accurately reflect severity. Moreover, RLS is primarily a subjective disorder. Therefore, a subjective scale is at present the optimal instrument to meet this need. ⋯ This scale meets performance criteria for a brief, patient completed instrument that can be used to assess RLS severity for purposes of clinical assessment, research, or therapeutic trials. It supports a finding that RLS is a relatively uniform disorder in which the severity of the basic symptoms is strongly related to their impact on the patient's life. In future studies, the IRLS should be tested against objective measures of RLS severity and its sensitivity should be studied as RLS severity is systematically manipulated by therapeutic interventions.
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The International Restless Legs Syndrome Study Group has developed and validated a ten-item scale for assessing the severity of the restless legs syndrome. This International Restless Legs Severity Scale (IRLS) is reported to have a high degree of internal consistency and it has generally been used as a single scale. This study uses a factor analytic approach to evaluate the IRLS for possibly useful subscales. ⋯ The IRLS can be evaluated using separate subscale scores: one for symptoms and the other symptom impact. The relative merits of these subscale scores versus the score for the entire test need to be evaluated in different situations in further studies, in especially the ones involving assessing responsiveness to treatment effects.