Becker Heather, Stuifbergen Alexa
The University of Texas at Austin, School of Nursing, Austin, Texas, USA.
Int J MS Care. 2009 Summer;11(2):57-65. doi: 10.7224/1537-2073-11.2.57.
Researchers use various measures to assess health status, impairment, functional limitations, and disability among people with Multiple Sclerosis. However, conceptually and empirically relationships among measures are not always clear. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among measures of impairment, disability, functional status and health related outcomes within a sample of 443 individuals with MS. A secondary purpose was to compare the reported health status of this sample to the health status of a population-based sample of individuals with and without disabilities. While both the MS sample and a population-based sample of individuals with activities limitations indicated poorer health than did their non-disabled counterparts, the MS sample reported more days in the past month when physical and mental health was not good and more days when poor health kept them from usual activities than the population-based sample of individuals with disabilities. Most measures were moderately intercorrelated, but the pattern suggests that issues such as the time period specified may affect the relationships. Researchers are advised to carefully consider operational as well as conceptual definitions, length of proposed measures, and appropriate time frame, as well as more traditional criteria of reliability and validity when selecting study measures.
研究人员采用各种方法来评估多发性硬化症患者的健康状况、损伤情况、功能受限程度和残疾状况。然而，从概念和实证角度来看，这些方法之间的关系并不总是清晰的。本研究的目的是在443名多发性硬化症患者样本中，考察损伤、残疾、功能状态及健康相关结果等指标之间的关系。第二个目的是将该样本报告的健康状况与一个基于人群的、有残疾和无残疾个体的样本的健康状况进行比较。虽然多发性硬化症样本以及一个基于人群的、有活动受限的个体样本报告的健康状况都比无残疾的对应样本差，但多发性硬化症样本报告在过去一个月中身心健康不佳的天数更多，因健康状况不佳而无法进行日常活动的天数也比基于人群的残疾个体样本更多。大多数指标之间存在中度相互关联，但这种模式表明，诸如所规定的时间段等问题可能会影响这些关系。建议研究人员在选择研究指标时，要仔细考虑操作定义和概念定义、拟采用指标的长度、合适的时间框架，以及更传统的信度和效度标准。
