Assessing the construct validity of the Italian version of the EQ-5D: preliminary results from a cross-sectional study i
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Assessing the construct validity of the Italian version of the EQ-5D: preliminary results from a cross-sectional study in North Italy Elena Savoia*1, Maria Pia Fantini1, Pier Paolo Pandolfi2, Laura Dallolio1 and Natalina Collina2 Address: 1Department of Medicine and Public Health, Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna, Italy and 2Azienda USL di Bologna, Bologna, Italy Email: Elena Savoia* - [email protected]; Maria Pia Fantini - [email protected]; Pier Paolo Pandolfi - [email protected]; Laura Dallolio - [email protected]; Natalina Collina - [email protected] * Corresponding author
Published: 10 August 2006 Health and Quality of Life Outcomes 2006, 4:47
doi:10.1186/1477-7525-4-47
Received: 13 March 2006 Accepted: 10 August 2006
This article is available from: http://www.hqlo.com/content/4/1/47 © 2006 Savoia et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract Background: Information on health related quality of life (HR-QOL) can be integrated with other classical health status indicators and be used to assist policy makers in resource allocation decisions. For this reason instruments such as the SF-12 and EQ-5D have been widely proposed as assessment tools to monitor changes in HR-QOL in general populations and very recently in general practice settings as well Aim: The primary goal of our study was to assess the construct validity of the Italian version of the EQ-5D in a general population of North Italy using socio-demographic factors and diagnostic sub-groups. Our secondary goal was to assess the concurrent validity of the EQ-5D and SF-12. Methods: The SF-12, the EQ-5D plus an additional questionnaire on socio-demographic characteristics, clinical conditions and symptoms were completed by 1,622 adults, randomly selected from the Registry of the Health Authorities of the city of Bologna, Italy. The primary care physician of each subject was contacted to report on the subject's health status. Results: Our findings indicate that the Italian version of the EQ-5D is well accepted by the general population (91% response rate), has good reliability (Cronbach's alpha 0.73), and shows evidence of construct validity. Conclusion: Our data provide a basis for further research to be conducted to assess the validity of the EQ-5D in Italy. In particular future studies should focus on assessing its ability to detect a clinically important change in health related quality of life over time (responsiveness).
Background Improving the health of local populations requires specific knowledge of the current levels of health status, which can be compared over time. However commissioning health care services carries with it the need to prioritize
resources. For this reason policy makers have always
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