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Assessing quality of life in persons with severe neurological disability associated with multiple sclerosis: The psychometric evaluation of two quality of life measures
Author(s) -
Murrell Rachel C.,
Kenealy Pamela M.,
Beaumont J. Graham,
Lintern Tracey C.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
british journal of health psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.05
H-Index - 88
eISSN - 2044-8287
pISSN - 1359-107X
DOI - 10.1348/135910799168696
Subject(s) - quality of life (healthcare) , repeated measures design , analysis of variance , population , multiple sclerosis , medicine , correlation , test (biology) , physical therapy , psychology , clinical psychology , psychiatry , statistics , paleontology , geometry , nursing , mathematics , environmental health , biology
Objectives. To examine the psychometric properties of two conceptually different quality of life (QoL) measures, the SEIQoL‐DW (a person‐centred measure) and the SF36 (a health‐based measure), in a severely disabled population of individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS). Design. A factorial repeated measures design was used. Method. The two QoL measures were administered at baseline to 30 individuals with MS at the Royal Hospital for Neuro‐disability, Putney; participants were aged between 20 and 65 years and selected on the basis of their communication ability, years since diagnosis and extent of physical disability (using EDSS ratings). Administration of the SEIQoL‐DWand the SF‐36 was repeated on five fortnightly occasions on a subset of 22 participants 10 months after baseline. On each of the five re‐test occasions, participants also rated their QoL ‘today’ and ‘generally’ on visual analogue scales, and reported significant positive/negative life changes that had affected their QoL. Results. The SF‐36 was more reliable by traditional re‐test standards than the SEIQoL‐DW, but several floor and ceiling effects were observed. Only the SEIQoLDW was significantly related to QoL today (average correlation 0. 52) and QoL generally (average correlation 0. 52) (p < .05) ratings and analyses using ANOVA suggested that the measure was also more sensitive to life changes reported (F (2, 36)= 7. 57, p <. 01). Conclusion. The SEIQoL‐DW is recommended as a suitable person‐centred measure for use with the current population, because it appears to have good face validity and is capable of reflecting individual reports of life change between assessments. It has potential use in other severely disabled samples who obtain low scores on health‐based measures because of their physical status, providing a more holistic view of individual QoL than the SF‐36.