Validation of the Investigator's Assessment Questionnaire, a new clinical tool for relative assessment of response to antipsychotics in patients with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder.
The success of long-term therapy in schizophrenia is contingent upon real-world effectiveness or improvements in several domains, including efficacy, safety and tolerability. This report describes the Investigator's Assessment Questionnaire (IAQ), a new 10-item instrument designed to assess relative effectiveness (efficacy, safety and tolerability) of antipsychotic medications in patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. To measure content validity, 300 psychiatrists rated the importance of the IAQ items. Efficacy (i.e., positive and negative symptoms) was considered most important, but importance scores relative to the mean ranged only from 0.87 to 1.18, suggesting similar importance of the items. Cronbach's coefficient alpha values showed that the items were internally consistent. Factor analyses indicated that all IAQ items belong to a single domain. Data from the US Broad Effectiveness Trial of Aripiprazole were used for construct validation. Total IAQ score correlated significantly with time to treatment discontinuation (r=-0.50), Clinical Global Impressions-Improvement (CGI-I) score (r=0.76) and medication preference of patients (r=0.71) or caregivers (r=0.70). A one-unit decrease in IAQ score corresponded to an additional 1.35 days in the study and a decrease in CGI-I of 0.21 units. These results provide initial validation of the IAQ as a tool for evaluating antipsychotic response in patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder.
Tandon
Rajiv
R
Department of Psychiatry (Adjunct), University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA.
Devellis
Robert F
RF
Han
Jian
J
Li
Hong
H
Frangou
Sophia
S
Dursun
Serdar
S
Beuzen
Jean-Noel
JN
Carson
William
W
Corey-Lisle
Patricia K
PK
Falissard
Bruno
B
Jody
Darlene N
DN
Kujawa
Mary J
MJ
L'italien
Gilbert
G
Marcus
Ronald N
RN
McQuade
Robert D
RD
Ray
Saurabh
S
Van Peborgh
Pascal
P
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D014150:Antipsychotic Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011618:Psychotic Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000188:drug therapy*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000188:drug therapy*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
D014150:Antipsychotic Agents