02 September, 2013

Psychometric performance of the CAMPHOR and SF-36 in pulmonary hypertension.

Psychometric performance of the CAMPHOR and SF-36 in pulmonary hypertension" has been published by BMC Pulmonary Medicine. The authors of this article are J. Twiss, S.P. McKenna, L. Ganderton, S. Jenkins, M. Ben-L’amri, K. Gain, R. Fowler and E. Gabbay. The article compares the psychometric properties of the two most widely used patient-reported outcome measures in pulmonary hypertension.

The article's abstract reads as follows:

Background

The Cambridge Pulmonary Hypertension Outcome Review (CAMPHOR) and the Medical Outcomes Study Short Form 36 (SF-36) are widely used to assess patient-reported outcome in individuals with pulmonary hypertension (PH). The aim of the study was to compare the psychometric properties of the two measures.

Methods

Participants were recruited from specialist PH centres in Australia and New Zealand. Participants completed the CAMPHOR and SF-36 at two time points two weeks apart. The SF-36 is a generic health status questionnaire consisting of 36 items split into 8 sections. The CAMPHOR is a PH-specific measure consisting of 3 scales; symptoms, activity limitations and needs-based QoL. The questionnaires were assessed for distributional properties (floor and ceiling effects), internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha), test-retest reliability and construct validity (scores by World Health Organisation functional classification).

Results

The sample comprised 65 participants (mean (SD) age = 57.2 (14.5) years; n(%) male = 14 (21.5%)). Most of the patients were in WHO class 2 (27.7%) and 3 (61.5%). High ceiling effects were observed for the SF-36 bodily pain, social functioning and role emotional domains. Test-retest reliability was poor for six of the eight SF-36 domains, indicating high levels of random measurement error. Three of the SF-36 domains did not distinguish between WHO classes. In contrast, all CAMPHOR scales exhibited good distributional properties, test retest reliability and distinguished between WHO functional classes.

Conclusions

The CAMPHOR exhibited superior psychometric properties, compared with the SF-36, in the assessment of PH patient-reported outcome.

More information on the article can be found at BioMedCentral.com.