Selection of Quality-of-Life Measures for a Prevention Trial: A Psychometric Analysis

Quality-of-life (QoL) outcomes have become increasingly important in the evaluation of health interventions. The objective of the present study was to determine which of three generic QoL instruments was most suitable for use in an 8-year nutritional primary prevention trial. We compared the Duke He...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Controlled clinical trials 2000-02, Vol.21 (1), p.30-43
Main Authors: Bouchet, Christine, Guillemin, Francis, Paul-Dauphin, Agnès, Briançon, Serge
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biological and medical sciences
Cardiovascular Diseases - prevention & control
Clinical trial. Drug monitoring
Clinical Trials as Topic - methods
Effect Modifier, Epidemiologic
Female
General pharmacology
Health Status
Humans
Male
Medical sciences
Middle Aged
Neoplasms - prevention & control
Pharmacology. Drug treatments
primary prevention
psychometric properties
Psychometrics - methods
Quality of Life
Reproducibility of Results
Surveys and Questionnaires
trial
Vitamins - therapeutic use
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Summary:Quality-of-life (QoL) outcomes have become increasingly important in the evaluation of health interventions. The objective of the present study was to determine which of three generic QoL instruments was most suitable for use in an 8-year nutritional primary prevention trial. We compared the Duke Health Profile, the Nottingham Health Profile, and the Short Form Health Survey Questionnaire (SF36). We conducted the comparison in two stages: (1) a statistical analysis of data from a pilot study n = 963 comparing the psychometric properties of the three instruments; and (2) an assessment of the practicality of the tools. With regard to psychometric properties, convergent validity was comparable for the three scales, and the correlation with Global Health Assessment ranged from 0.24 to 0.72. Discriminant validity was best for the SF36, with a difference between scores in healthy subjects and those with chronic disease in the range of 4.4 to 15.8 (scores could range from 0 to 100, where 100 indicates perfect health). Reproducibility was good for all three instruments, with a test-retest intraclass correlation coefficient of over 0.60 for most dimensions. DHP and SF36 performed best in terms of responsiveness. We judged the practicality of the three tools as satisfactory. We chose the SF36 for its high responsiveness. We also selected the Duke Health Profile for its practicality and favorable psychometric properties. Control Clin Trials 2000;21:30–43
ISSN:0197-2456
1879-050X
DOI:10.1016/S0197-2456(99)00038-0