Reliability of the COOP/WONCA charts. Test-retest completed by patients presenting psychosocial health problems to their general practitioner.
OBJECTIVE
To study the reliability of the COOP/WONCA charts when completed by patients who contacted their general practitioner (GP) with psychosocial health problems.


METHODS
Test-retest study. Three measures: on day 0, day 1 and day 14. Comparisons were made between measures on day 0 and day 1 (1-day test) and measures on day 1 and day 14 (13-day test). Patients reported separately if change in their health had occurred between the measurements.


METHODS
General practice, Denmark.


METHODS
54 1-day test chart sets and 54 13-day test chart sets.


METHODS
Cohen's weighted kappa was used to assess reproducibility. In the group of patients who reported health change in the 13-day test we used clinically significant changes in the individual items to assess the charts' sensitivity to changes.


RESULTS
The items "overall health", "feelings", and "social activities" showed high reproducibility for patients without reported health change between the tests, and good sensitivity to reflect the reported changes for patients with change.


CONCLUSIONS
The COOP/WONCA health status measures: "overall health", "feelings", and "social activities" are, combined with "change in health", reliable for assessing primary care patients with psychosocial health problems.
Lindegaard
P M
PM
Department of General Practice, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.
Bentzen
N
N
Christiansen
T
T
D005194:Family Practice; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D011602:Psychophysiologic Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*