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A questionnaire to assess the generic and disease-specific health outcomes of patients with chronic hepatitis C

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Abstract

A 69-item questionnaire measuring generic functioning and well-being and disease-specific health outcomes was developed and tested using the pre-treatment data from patients with chronic hepatitis C (CHC) participating in two randomized trials of interferon α-2b (n = 157). The questionnaire included all eight scales from the SF-36 and measures of nine other generic and disease-specific health concepts. Psychometric tests confirmed the assumptions underlying the construction and scoring of all generic and disease-specific scales. Cross-sectional tests of ‘known groups’ validity showed that CHC patients scored worse on the generic scales than patients with other chronic conditions and worse than a healthy general population. The generic and disease-specific scale scores were lower in the presence of physical findings of CHC, as hypothesized, but only the physical functioning and bodily pain scales were linked to cirrhosis or extreme alanine aminotransferase (ALT) ratios. This instrument will be useful in studies of health outcome among patients with CHC, a condition whose health burden appears to have been underestimated in studies to date.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Health Institute, New England Medical Center, Boston, USA

    Martha S. Bayliss, Barbara Gandek, Kathleen M. Bungay & Ming-Ann Hsu

  2. USA Schering-Plough Inc Pfizer Inc., USA

    David Sugano

  3. Tufts University School of Medicine USA and Harvard School of Public Health, USA

    John E. Ware Jr

Authors
  1. Martha S. Bayliss
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  2. Barbara Gandek
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  3. Kathleen M. Bungay
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  4. David Sugano
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  5. Ming-Ann Hsu
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  6. John E. Ware Jr
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Bayliss, M.S., Gandek, B., Bungay, K.M. et al. A questionnaire to assess the generic and disease-specific health outcomes of patients with chronic hepatitis C. Qual Life Res 7, 39–55 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008884805251

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