title: Expansion of a physical function item bank and development of an abbreviated form for clinical research.
abstract: We expanded an existing 33-item physical function (PF) item bank with a sufficient number of items to enable computerized adaptive testing (CAT). Ten items were written to expand the bank and the new item pool was administered to 295 people with cancer. For this analysis of the new pool, seven poorly performing items were identified for further examination. This resulted in a bank with items that define an essentially unidimensional PF construct, cover a wide range of that construct, reliably measure the PF of persons with cancer, and distinguish differences in self-reported functional performance levels. We also developed a 5-item (static) assessment form ("BriefPF") that can be used in clinical research to express scores on the same metric as the overall bank. The BriefPF was compared to the PF-10 from the Medical Outcomes Study SF-36. Both short forms significantly differentiated persons across functional performance levels. While the entire bank was more precise across the PF continuum than either short form, there were differences in the area of the continuum in which each short form was more precise: the BriefPF was more precise than the PF-10 at the lower functional levels and the PF-10 was more precise than the BriefPF at the higher levels. Future research on this bank will include the development of a CAT version, the PF-CAT.
authors.affiliation: Center for Rehabilitation Outcomes Research, Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago/Northwestern University, IL 60611, USA. r-bode@northwestern.edu
authors.forename: Rita K
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Bode
authors.forename: Jin-shei
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Lai
authors.forename: Kelly
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Dineen
authors.forename: Allen W
authors.initials: AW
authors.lastname: Heinemann
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Shevrin
authors.forename: Jamie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Von Roenn
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Cella
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000368:Aged; D035843:Biomedical Research; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009369:Neoplasms; D011471:Prostatic Neoplasms; D011788:Quality of Life; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires