Utility of WHOQOL-BREF in measuring quality of life in Sickle Cell Disease
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Utility of WHOQOL-BREF in measuring quality of life in Sickle Cell Disease Monika R Asnani*1, Garth E Lipps2 and Marvin E Reid1 Address: 1Sickle Cell Unit, Tropical Medicine Research Institute, University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, Kingston 7, Jamaica and 2Department of Psychology, Sociology and Social Work, University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, Kingston 7, Jamaica Email: Monika R Asnani* - [email protected]; Garth E Lipps - [email protected]; Marvin E Reid - [email protected] * Corresponding author
Published: 10 August 2009 Health and Quality of Life Outcomes 2009, 7:75
doi:10.1186/1477-7525-7-75
Received: 18 March 2009 Accepted: 10 August 2009
This article is available from: http://www.hqlo.com/content/7/1/75 © 2009 Asnani 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: Sickle cell disease is the commonest genetic disorder in Jamaica and most likely exerts numerous effects on quality of life (QOL) of those afflicted with it. The WHOQOL-Bref, which is a commonly utilized generic measure of quality of life, has never previously been utilized in this population. We have sought to study its utility in this disease population. Methods: 491 patients with sickle cell disease were administered the questionnaire including demographics, WHOQOL-Bref, Short Form-36 (SF-36), Flanagan's quality of life scale (QOLS) and measures of disease severity at their routine health maintenance visits to the sickle cell unit. Internal consistency reliabilities, construct validity and "known groups" validity of the WHOQOLBref, and its domains, were examined; and then compared to those of the other instruments. Results: All three instruments had good internal consistency, ranging from 0.70 to 0.93 for the WHOQOL-Bref (except the 'social relationships' domain), 0.86–0.93 for the SF-36 and 0.88 for the QOLS. None of the instruments showed any marked floor or ceiling effects except the SF-36 'physical health' and 'role limitations' domains. The WHOQOL-Bref scale also had moderate concurrent validity and showed strong "known groups" validity. Conclusion: This study has shown good psychometric properties of the WHOQOL-Bref instrument in determining QOL of those with sickle cell disease. Its utility in this regard is comparable to that of the SF-36 and QOLS.
Background Sickle cell disease (SCD) is the commonest genetic disorder in Jamaica with the sickle hemoglobin (HbS) gene being present in about 10% of the population. It includes a variety of pathological conditions [1] and affects the individual throughout their life cycle. In Jamaica, SCD has become a significant indirect cause of maternal mortality [2] and contributes as a causative factor to 0.7% of cases of chronic renal failure [3]
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