Dataset Information

Use of an Item Bank to Develop Two Short-Form FAMCARE Scales to Measure Family Satisfaction With Care in the Setting of Serious Illness.

ABSTRACT: CONTEXT:Family satisfaction is an important and commonly used research measure. Yet current measures of family satisfaction are lengthy and may be unnecessarily burdensome--particularly in the setting of serious illness. OBJECTIVES:To use an item bank to develop short forms of the Family Satisfaction with End-of-Life Care (FAMCARE) scale, which measures family satisfaction with care. METHODS:To shorten the existing 20-item FAMCARE measure, item response theory parameters from an item bank were used to select the most informative items. The psychometric properties of the new short-form scales were examined. The item bank was based on data from family members from an ethnically diverse sample of 1983 patients with advanced cancer. RESULTS:Evidence for the new short-form scales supported essential unidimensionality. Reliability estimates from several methods were relatively high, ranging from 0.84 for the five-item scale to 0.94 for the 10-item scale across different age, gender, education, ethnic, and relationship groups. CONCLUSION:The FAMCARE-10 and FAMCARE-5 short-form scales evidenced high reliability across sociodemographic subgroups and are potentially less burdensome and time-consuming scales for monitoring family satisfaction among seriously ill patients.

SUBMITTER: Ornstein KA

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4441836 | biostudies-literature | 2015 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Use of an Item Bank to Develop Two Short-Form FAMCARE Scales to Measure Family Satisfaction With Care in the Setting of Serious Illness.

Ornstein Katherine A KA Teresi Jeanne A JA Ocepek-Welikson Katja K Ramirez Mildred M Meier Diane E DE Morrison R Sean RS Siu Albert L AL

Journal of pain and symptom management 20141227 5

<h4>Context</h4>Family satisfaction is an important and commonly used research measure. Yet current measures of family satisfaction are lengthy and may be unnecessarily burdensome--particularly in the setting of serious illness.<h4>Objectives</h4>To use an item bank to develop short forms of the Family Satisfaction with End-of-Life Care (FAMCARE) scale, which measures family satisfaction with care.<h4>Methods</h4>To shorten the existing 20-item FAMCARE measure, item response theory parameters fr ...[more]

PMID: 25546287

Similar Datasets

Project description:BackgroundThere has recently been growing interest in the roles of inflammation in contributing to the development of anxiety in people with immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (IMID). Patient-reported outcome measures can facilitate the assessment of physical and psychological functioning. The National Institutes of Health (NIH)'s Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS®) is a set of Patient-Reported Outcomes (PROs) that cover physical appearance, mental health, and social health. The PROMIS has been built through an Item Response Theory approach (IRT), a model-based measurement in which trait level estimates depend on both persons' responses and on the properties of the items that were administered. The aim of this study is to test the psychometric properties of an Italian custom four-item Short Form of the PROMIS Anxiety item bank in a cohort of outpatients with IMIDs.MethodsWe selected four items from the Italian standard Short Form Anxiety 8a and administered them to consecutive outpatients affected by Inflammatory Bowel disease (n = 246), rheumatological (n = 100) and dermatological (n = 43) diseases, and healthy volunteers (n = 280). Data was analyzed through an Item Response Theory (IRT) analysis in order to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Italian adaptation of the PROMIS anxiety short form.ResultsTaken together, Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Exploratory Factor analysis suggest that the unidimensionality assumption of the instrument holds. The instrument has excellent reliability from a Classical Theory of Test (CTT) standpoint (Cronbach's α = 0.93, McDonald's ω = 0.92). The 2PL Graded Response Model (GRM) model provided showed a better goodness of fit as compared to the 1PL GRM model, and local independence assumption appears to be met overall. We did not find signs of differential item functioning (DIF) for age and gender, but evidence for uniform (but not non-uniform) DIF was found in three out of four items for the patient vs. control group. Analysis of the test reliability curve suggested that the instrument is most reliable for higher levels of the latent trait of anxiety. The groups of patients exhibited higher levels of anxiety as compared to the control group (ps < 0.001, Bonferroni-corrected). The groups of patients were not different between themselves (p = 1, Bonferroni-corrected). T-scores based on estimated latent trait and raw scores were highly correlated (Pearson's r = 0.98) and led to similar results.DiscussionThe Italian custom four-item short form from the PROMIS anxiety form 8a shows acceptable psychometric properties both from a CTT and an IRT standpoint. The Test Reliability Curve shows that this instrument is mostly informative for people with higher levels of anxiety, making it particularly suitable for clinical populations such as IMID patients.

Project description:ImportanceNo instrument exists to assess quality of life (QOL) in adult cochlear implant (CI) users that has been developed and validated using accepted scientific standards.ObjectiveTo develop a CI-specific QOL instrument for adults in accordance with the Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) guidelines.Design, setting, and participantsAs required in the PROMIS guidelines, patient focus groups participated in creation of the initial item bank. Twenty-three adult CI users were divided into 1 of 3 focus groups stratified by word recognition ability. Three moderator-led focus groups were conducted based on grounded theory on December 3, 2016. Two reviewers independently analyzed focus group recordings and transcripts, with a third reviewer available to resolve discrepancies. All data were reviewed and reported according to the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research. The setting was a tertiary referral center.Main outcomes and measuresCoded focus group data.ResultsThe 23 focus group participants (10 [43%] female; mean [range] age, 68.1 [46.2-84.2] years) represented a wide range of income levels, education levels, listening modalities, CI device manufacturers, duration of CI use, and age at implantation. Data saturation was determined to be reached before the conclusion of each of the focus groups. After analysis of the transcripts, the central themes identified were communication, emotion, environmental sounds, independence and work function, listening effort, social isolation and ability to socialize, and sound clarity. Cognitive interviews were carried out on 20 adult CI patients who did not participate in the focus groups to ensure item clarity. Based on these results, the initial QOL item bank and prototype were developed.Conclusions and relevancePatient focus groups drawn from the target population are the preferred method of identifying content areas and domains for developing the item bank for a CI-specific QOL instrument. Compared with previously used methods, the use of patient-centered item development for a CI-specific QOL instrument will more accurately reflect patient experience and increase our understanding of how CI use affects QOL.

Project description:BackgroundPositive mindset (PM) is an important domain of health-related quality of life in Singapore, a multi-ethnic urban city state in Southeast Asia. We therefore developed and calibrated a novel item bank to measure and improve PM.MethodsWe developed an initial candidate pool of 48 items from focus groups, in-depth interviews and existing instruments locally developed and validated for use in Singapore. We administered all items in English to a multi-stage sample stratified for age and gender, of subjects with and without medical conditions recruited from the community and a hospital, and calibrated their responses using Samejima's Graded Response Model. We evaluated a final 36-item bank with respect to Item Response Theory (IRT) model assumptions, model fit, differential item functioning (DIF), concurrent and known-groups validity.ResultsAmong 493 participants (49.3% male, 41.6% above 50 years old, 33% Chinese, Malay and Indian), bifactor model analyses supported unidimensionality: explained common variance of the general factor was 0.86 and omega hierarchical was 0.97. Local independence was deemed acceptable: the average absolute residual correlations were <0.06 and 3.3% of the total item-pair residuals were flagged for local dependence. The overall model fit was adequate and provided good coverage of the PM construct (theta range: -3.6 to +2.4). Five items exhibited DIF with respect to ethnicity and gender, but were retained without modification of scores because they measured important aspects of PM. Scores correlated in the hypothesized direction with a self-reported measure of global health (Spearman's rho = -0.28, p<0.001) and discriminated between groups of participants with and without a self-reported diagnosis of a mood disorder (p = 0.007) adjusting for age, gender, ethnicity, education and marital status.ConclusionThe 36-item PM item bank demonstrated satisfactory psychometric properties for the English-speaking Singaporean population. IRT model assumptions were sufficiently met and scores showed concurrent and known-groups validity. Future studies to evaluate the validity of PM scores when items are administered adaptively are needed.

Dataset Information

Use of an Item Bank to Develop Two Short-Form FAMCARE Scales to Measure Family Satisfaction With Care in the Setting of Serious Illness.

Publications

Use of an Item Bank to Develop Two Short-Form FAMCARE Scales to Measure Family Satisfaction With Care in the Setting of Serious Illness.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets