title: Quality of life in persons with irritable bowel syndrome: development and validation of a new measure.
abstract: How irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and its treatment affect quality of life (QOL) is important. To develop a quality-of-life measure specific to irritable bowel syndrome, items were generated using a conceptual model and qualitative interviews with persons diagnosed using the Rome criteria. Symptom frequency and bothersomeness indices were created. Psychometric evaluation methods involved an initial cross-sectional survey followed by a repeat survey. The resulting 34-item measure demonstrated high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.95) and high reproducibility (ICC = 0.86) with average time of seven days (SD = 1). For discriminant validity: number of symptoms (P < 0.05), self-reported severity of symptoms (P < 0.001), and the functional bowel disorder severity index (P < 0.001) significantly predicted IBS-QOL scores. Convergent validity and analyses confirmed predictions that scores are more closely related to psychological well-being (0.45) than to function (0.36). We conclude this measure meets established psychometric criteria for reliability and validity; testing of its responsiveness is warranted.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle 98195-7660, USA.
authors.forename: D L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Patrick
authors.forename: D A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Drossman
authors.forename: I O
authors.initials: IO
authors.lastname: Frederick
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: DiCesare
authors.forename: K L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Puder
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003109:Colonic Diseases, Functional; D005260:Female; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011594:Psychometrics; D011788:Quality of Life; D015203:Reproducibility of Results