Towards a Composite Scoring Solution for the Neurobehavioral Functioning Inventory

• Published in: Quality of life research Vol. 8; no. 1/2; pp. 17 - 24
• Main Authors: Weinfurt, K P, Willke, R, Glick, H A, Schulman, K A
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Rapid Communications of Oxford Ltd 01.01.1999; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Activities of Daily Living; Adult; Aggression - psychology; Analysis of Variance; Caregivers; Clinical trials; Covariance matrices; Craniocerebral trauma; Craniocerebral Trauma - physiopathology; Craniocerebral Trauma - psychology; Depressive disorders; Factor analysis; Factor Analysis, Statistical; Female; Health Status; Humans; Male; Mental Health; Neuropsychological Tests - standards; Principal components analysis; Quality of Life; Reproducibility of Results; Severity of Illness Index; Statistical variance; Surveys and Questionnaires - standards; Symptoms
• ISSN: 0962-9343; 1573-2649
• DOI: 10.1023/A:1026411129270

Little research has been conducted towards the development and evaluation of a measure of quality of life specific to head/brain injury populations. Accordingly, we examined responses to the Neurobehavioral Functioning Inventory in the context of a clinical trial for head injury patients (n = 655) conducted in 14 countries. To reduce the 66 item scale into a smaller number of composite scales, principal components analysis was conducted. Scales were constructed assessing four categories of symptoms: cognitive deficits, depression, aggression and somatization. The internal reliabilities (α coefficient) of the four scales were generally acceptable (range = 0.79-0.92). Scores on all four scales correlated significantly with patient-rated overall quality of life and all but the aggression scale correlated significantly with overall clinical severity. The need for more formal evaluation of this and other disease-specific measures is discussed.