The Quality of Well-being Scale is an interviewer-administrated measure of health-related quality of life. The measure has been used in a wide variety of outcome and public policy studies. A major feature of the measure is that it can be used for cost-utility analysis. There have been at least three criticism of the QWB for outcome studies in arthritis. First, the QWB must be administered by an interviewer. Second, the QWB has not been validated specifically for patients with arthritis. Third, the preference weighting system is based on the general population rather than arthritis patients. The QWB has recently been redeveloped as a self-administered questionnaire (QWB-SA). The purpose of the study is to validate the QWB-SA for patients with arthritis and musculoskeletal disorders. This study has four Specific Aims.
The first Aim i s to demonstrate the feasibility of the QWB-SA for patients with arthritis and musculoskeletal disorders. The QWB-SA will be administered along with the AIMS-2 and the SF-36 to 1,500 patients. Analysis will consider rates of completed responses, difference in response, and missing information. The second Specific Aim is to develop an arthritis-specific QWB-SA. This will be accomplished by analyzing data collected in relation to Specific Aim 1. Comparisons between arthritis and non patients, using item analysis, will identify components of the measure that separate arthritis patients from patients with other illnesses.
The third Aim i s to compare preferences from arthritis patients and non patients. This will be accomplished by obtaining ratings for case descriptions and analyzing whether patients have different preference for outcome that non patients. The fourth Specific Aim will be to determine whether patients have different preference for outcome when in acute or non acute pain states. This study will use 100 Rheumatoid Arthritis patients. Half the patients will enter the study when in acute flare while the others will enter when they are not in an acute state. Both groups will be followed prospectively. The product of the research would be an improved outcome measure for public policy studies relevant to arthritis.
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