title: Brief index of lupus damage: a patient-reported measure of damage in systemic lupus erythematosus.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To develop and test the Brief Index of Lupus Damage (BILD), an interviewer-administered measure of damage in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), for use in epidemiologic studies in which administration of the Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics/American College of Rheumatology Damage Index (SDI) by trained physicians is not possible or feasible. In addition, we compared the BILD to another recently developed patient-reported measure, the Lupus Damage Index Questionnaire (LDIQ), which was designed as a written survey.
  
  
  METHODS
  A sample of 81 patients from 2 university-affiliated SLE clinics was used to test the criterion validity of the BILD and the LDIQ. A second sample, the Lupus Outcomes Study (n = 728), was used to ascertain the construct validity of the BILD.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We found good agreement between most BILD items and corresponding SDI items, and moderately high overall Spearman's rank correlations for SDI with BILD (0.64) and with LDIQ (0.54). BILD scores were higher among older individuals, those with longer disease duration, and those with higher mean disease activity in the preceding 4 years. In addition, higher BILD scores were associated with poorer self-rated health and functional status, greater unemployment and work disability, and increased health care utilization.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We developed and performed a preliminary validation study demonstrating content, criterion, and construct validity of a new practical patient-reported instrument of SLE disease damage. Although further studies are needed to examine reliability and to document psychometric properties in other populations, the BILD appears to represent a promising tool for studies of SLE outside the clinical setting.
authors.affiliation: Rosalind Russell Medical Research Center for Arthritis, University of California-San Francisco, CA 94143-0920, USA. jinoos.yazdany@ucsf.edu
authors.forename: Jinoos
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yazdany
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Trupin
authors.forename: Stuart A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Gansky
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dall'era
authors.forename: Edward H
authors.initials: EH
authors.lastname: Yelin
authors.forename: Lindsey A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Criswell
authors.forename: Patricia P
authors.initials: PP
authors.lastname: Katz
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D015331:Cohort Studies; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D005260:Female; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006801:Humans; D008180:Lupus Erythematosus, Systemic / Q000145:classification / Q000473:pathology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010865:Pilot Projects; D016353:Self-Examination; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult