A procedure for developing a quality-of-life measure for epilepsy surgery patients.
In 1990, the NIH Consensus Conference Panel on epilepsy surgery called for the development and use of reliable and valid health-related quality-of-life (HRQOL) measures in epilepsy surgery studies. A HRQOL measure for epilepsy surgery patients has been developed and evaluated. The procedure, which could also be used to develop HRQOL measures for other neurological diseases, entails the following steps: (a) specify desired characteristics of the measure; (b) identify relevant HRQOL areas by reviewing the literature; (c) assemble generic core items and disease-specific supplementary items; (d) pilot test and revise the measure; (e) administer revised measure items to a large sample of epilepsy surgery patients; (f) perform item analysis to evaluate hypothesized item placement within scales; and (g) assess the reliability and validity of the scales. The product of this process, the Epilepsy Surgery Inventory (ESI)-55, is a self-report measure of 11 dimensions of HRQOL. It is brief, comprehensive, and reliable; preliminary evidence supports its validity.
Vickrey
B G
BG
Department of Neurology, University of California, School of Medicine, Los Angeles 90024-1769.
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001294:Attitude to Health; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology / Q000601:surgery*; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D011594:Psychometrics; D011788:Quality of Life; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012917:Social Adjustment; D013514:Surgical Procedures, Operative / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*