title: Reliability and validity of a new living liver donor quality of life scale.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To develop a living liver donor (LLD) quality of life (QOL) scale and test its reliability and validity.
  
  
  METHODS
  We sent a draft questionnaire comprising 38 questions to 965 LLDs from five hospitals. To evaluate test-retest reliability, the questionnaire was re-sent 2 weeks later to some of the donors from one hospital.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of the 447 (54.5 %) donors who responded, 15 were excluded. Factor analysis of 26 items extracted 7 subscales; namely, damage from the operation, scarring, satisfaction, burden, after-effects, digestive symptoms, and lack of understanding of donor health. We analyzed construct validity on the basis of factor analysis and observed significant correlations among the seven subscales. Criterion-related validity was confirmed by significant correlation with the 36-item Short-Form Health Survey scores. None of the subscales showed unreasonable values. We evaluated the subscale reliability for internal consistency (α = 0.670-0.868, except for "digestive symptoms", α = 0.431) and test-retest reliability (r = 0.749-0.918). The factor "digestive symptoms" needs careful consideration because of low internal consistency.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The findings of this study confirmed the reliability and validity of the LLD QOL scale, which can be used for quantitatively evaluating the QOL of LLDs.
authors: Division of Health Science, Osaka University, 1-7 Yamadaoka, Suita City, Osaka, 565-0871, Japan. laneige@sahs.med.osaka-u.ac.jp
authors: Yuki
authors: Y
authors: Morooka
authors: Koji
authors: K
authors: Umeshita
authors: Akinobu
authors: A
authors: Taketomi
authors: Ken
authors: K
authors: Shirabe
authors: Yoshihiko
authors: Y
authors: Maehara
authors: Mayumi
authors: M
authors: Yamamoto
authors: Tsuyoshi
authors: T
authors: Shimamura
authors: Akihiko
authors: A
authors: Oshita
authors: Keiko
authors: K
authors: Kanno
authors: Hideki
authors: H
authors: Ohdan
authors: Naoki
authors: N
authors: Kawagishi
authors: Susumu
authors: S
authors: Satomi
authors: Kaoru
authors: K
authors: Ogawa
authors: Kuniko
authors: K
authors: Hagiwara
authors: Hiroaki
authors: H
authors: Nagano
mesh_terms: D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D006801:Humans; D016031:Liver Transplantation / Q000523:psychology*; D019520:Living Donors / Q000523:psychology*; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000379:methods*; D011788:Quality of Life; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires