Development and validation of an Arrhythmia-Specific questionnaire in Tachycardia and Arrhythmia (ASTA) with focus on Health-Related Quality of Life

• Background: Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQOL) assesses patients’ subjective experiences of illness and treatment and provides valuable information for quality assurance of health care interventions. The purpose was to develop and validate a disease-specific questionnaire evaluating HRQOL in patients with different forms of arrhythmias. Methods: The Arrhythmia-Specific questionnaire in Tachycardia and Arrhythmia (ASTA) HRQOL scale was developed from a literature review and patient interviews. An expert group of cardiologist, nurses and patients was involved in the development. For the validation data was also collected with SF-36. Construct validity was evaluated with item-total correlations and confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) suggesting a physical and mental subscale. Convergent and discriminant validity were evaluated using multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) with Spearman’s correlations. Internal consistency was evaluated using Cronbach´s alpha. Results: Data on ASTA HRQOL scale and SF-36 were collected from 270 patients, 66% men with a mean age of 59 years (SD ± 12.9). All items reached the expected level of item-total correlations ≥0.30. The CFA demonstrated satisfactory high factor loadings, both for the total scale and the physical and mental subscales. After error variances were allowed to correlate a good fit was reached between model and data. Convergent validity was confirmed with strongest correlations between ASTA’s physical subscale and SF-36’s physical component summary (PCS) and for ASTA’s mental subscale and SF-36 mental component summary (MCS). Discriminant validity was supported with lower correlations between  ASTA’s physical scale and SF-36 MCS and between ASTA’s mental scale and SF-36 PCS. Internal consistency and lower bound confidence intervals were >0.70 for all of the ASTA HRQOL scales. Conclusions: The validated ASTA HRQOL scales were found to have good psychometric properties and can be a valuable contribution for HRQOL evaluations in patients with different forms of arrhythmias

Nyckelord

Arrhythmias

Health-Related Quality of Life

questionnaire development

validation

MEDICINE

MEDICIN

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