The patients’ perspective on the perceived difficulties of dual-tasking: development and validation of the Dual-task Impact on Daily-living Activities Questionnaire (DIDA-Q)

• Published in: Multiple sclerosis and related disorders Vol. 46; p. 102601
• Main Authors: Pedullà, L., Tacchino, A., Podda, J., Bragadin, M. Monti, Bonzano, L., Battaglia, M.A., Bove, M., Brichetto, G., Ponzio, M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier B.V 01.11.2020
• Subjects: Activities of Daily Living; Daily-living activities; Dual tasks; Humans; Multiple sclerosis; Patient-reported outcomes; Psychometrics; Quality of Life; Questionnaire validation; Reproducibility of Results; Surveys and Questionnaires; Daily-living activities; Multiple sclerosis; Questionnaire validation; Patient-reported outcomes; Dual tasks
• ISSN: 2211-0348; 2211-0356
• DOI: 10.1016/j.msard.2020.102601

•Daily-living dual tasks often lead to motor-cognitive or motor-motor interference•To date, no validated tool assesses patients reported dual task difficulties in MS•A new questionnaire (DIDA-Q) was developed following a multi-stakeholder approach•DIDA-Q fits the model, showing internal consistency, validity and reliability•DIDA-Q could be used in rehabilitation research and clinical practice Everyday-life activities often require performing dual tasks (DT), with consequent possible occurrence of motor-cognitive or motor-motor interference. This could reduce quality of life, in particular in people with neurological diseases. However, there is lack of validated tools to assess the patients’ perspective on DT difficulties in this population. Therefore, we developed the Dual-task Impact on Daily-living Activities-Questionnaire (DIDA-Q) and tested its psychometric properties in people with multiple sclerosis (PwMS). Items were generated based on existing scales, DT paradigms used in previous studies and the opinion of a multi-stakeholder group, including both experts and PwMS. Twenty DT constituted the preliminary version of the DIDA-Q which was administered to 230 PwMS. The psychometric properties of the scale were evaluated including internal consistency, validity and reliability. Nineteen items survived after exploratory factor analysis, showing a three-factor solution which identifies the components mostly contributing to DT perceived difficulty (i.e., balance and mobility, cognition and upper-limb ability). The DIDA-Q appropriately fits the graded response model, with first evaluations supporting internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha=0.95), validity (70% of the hypotheses for convergent and discriminant constructs confirmed) and reliability (intraclass correlation coefficients=0.95) of this tool. The DIDA-Q could be used in research and clinical settings to discriminate individuals with low vs. high cognitive-motor or motor-motor interference, and to develop and evaluate the efficacy of personalized DT rehabilitative treatments in PwMS.