Recurrent syncope as a chronic disease: preliminary validation of a disease-specific measure of functional impairment
A disease-specific measure of functional health in syncope would provide an important outcome measure for use either in clinical trials or in the clinical management of patients with recurrent syncope. In a previous study the authors used formal functional status measures to determine physical and p...
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Published in | Journal of general internal medicine : JGIM Vol. 9; no. 4; p. 181 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
United States
01.04.1994
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Subjects | |
Online Access | Get more information |
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Summary: | A disease-specific measure of functional health in syncope would provide an important outcome measure for use either in clinical trials or in the clinical management of patients with recurrent syncope.
In a previous study the authors used formal functional status measures to determine physical and psychosocial impairment in recurrent syncope. This study provides a preliminary assessment of a disease-specific measure of function. The measure was pilot tested on 84 subjects, and validated in a separate cohort of 49 patients. The measure consists of 1) an 11-question matrix of yes/no questions, assessing the ways that syncope interferes with a patient's life (the result is expressed as a proportion of the total number of ways that syncope might interfere and is called the Impairment Score), and 2) three Likert-scale questions that assess the patient's fear and worry about syncope. Correlations were obtained between scores on the disease-specific measure and other measures of functional health.
Among the 49 patients in the test cohort, final scores on the disease-specific measure correlated with both physical and psychosocial dimension scores on a measure of functional status, the Sickness Impact Profile (r = 0.35-0.36, p = 0.01), and with five of ten subscale scores on a measure of psychological distress, the Symptom Checklist 90-R (r = 0.30-0.43, p = 0.004-0.02).
This new disease-specific quality-of-life measure in syncope measures both physical and psychosocial components of impairment and could be a valuable adjunct in measuring outcomes in syncope patients. |
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ISSN: | 0884-8734 |
DOI: | 10.1007/BF02600121 |