An investigation into the psychometric properties of patient-oriented measures in frailty and dementia

Patient centred measures can facilitate better health outcomes by focusing on symptoms considered important to the patient themselves. These kinds of measures can prove useful with regard to age-associated health issues such as dementia and frailty. A patient oriented approach can ensure that the patient receives the correct intervention at the appropriate time, and can potentially provide individualized clinical evaluations to avoid unclear or misleading findings from standard psychometric tests.

Goal attainment scaling (GAS), a system of goal setting which places the emphasis on the symptoms of individual patients, has been utilized in dementia research. However, due to limitations of GAS, such as feasibility issues, the approach was modified to build a novel tool, Dementia SymptomGuide™ that allows patients and carers to record and track dementia-related symptoms online. The Pictorial Fit-Frail Scale was developed in response to some of the limitations of commonly used frailty measures (e.g., small numbers of listed symptoms; inappropriateness with severely frail). An investigation into the psychometric properties of these newly developed tools is necessary to determine reliability, validity and responsiveness. Also this research will solidify the industry partner’s position as a global leader in the field of patient-centric outcome measurement for clinical monitoring and research.

Faculty Supervisor:

Olga Theou

Student:

Partner:

DGI Clinical Inc;Dalhousie University

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

Dalhousie University

Program: