PURPOSE The purpose of this study is to psychometrically test the Evaluation of Daily Activity Questionnaire in seven musculoskeletal conditions. MATERIALS AND METHODS One thousand and two hundred people with ankylosing spondylitis; osteoarthritis; systemic lupus erythematosus; systemic sclerosis; chronic pain; chronic upper limb disorders; or Primary Sjögren's syndrome completed the Evaluati...

PURPOSE We sought to evaluate 3 methods for imputing utility-based outcomes from clinical trial data measured using the Medical Outcomes Study 36-Item Short Form (SF-36). SUBJECTS Our subjects included 131 male and 505 female adults (mean age, 55.42 +/- 12.59 years) who were participating in a randomized clinical trial evaluating a new treatment of adults with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). MEA...

OBJECTIVE This study investigated whether the Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ) can be used as an instrument to assess the need for social support measures that address activity limitations and participation issues in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). METHODS This multicenter observational study included patients with RA and disease duration of at least one year, consulting their r...

INTRODUCTION To investigate whether baseline levels of anti-citrullinated protein antibody (ACPA) or IgM rheumatoid factor (IgM-RF) and changes in the year thereafter are associated with disease activity, functional and radiographic outcome in early arthritis patients, and provide additional information over baseline autoantibody status. METHODS In 545 early arthritis patients ACPA and IgM-RF...

The purpose of this pilot study was to determine the efficacy of an extremely low-frequency magnetic field (ELF-MF) in decreasing chronic pain in fibromyalgia (FM) patients. Thirty-seven females were recruited and randomized into two groups: one group was first exposed to systemic ELF-MF therapy (100 microtesla, 1 to 80 Hz) and then to sham therapy, and the other group received the opposite seq...

BACKGROUND Analysts frequently estimate health state utility values from other outcomes. Utility values like EQ-5D have characteristics that make standard statistical methods inappropriate. We have developed a bespoke, mixture model approach to directly estimate EQ-5D. An indirect method, "response mapping," first estimates the level on each of the 5 dimensions of the EQ-5D and then calculates ...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The Roland-Morris Questionnaire (RMQ) is a self-administered disability measure in which greater levels of disability are reflected by higher numbers on a 24-point scale. The RMQ has been shown to yield reliable measurements, which are valid for inferring the level of disability, and to be sensitive to change over time for groups of patients with low back pain. Little is ...

The quality of a consultation provided by a physician can have a profound impact on the quality of care and patient engagement in treatment decisions. When the COPD Assessment Test (CAT) was developed, one of its aims was to aid the communication between physician and patient about the impact of COPD. We developed a novel study design to assess this in a primary care consultation. Primary care ...

Objective: Pain is one of the most important outcomes in RA. Therefore, as objective as possible assessment of pain is necessary for reliable clinical evaluation and effective treatment planning. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate three pain measures in the sample of 151 newly-diagnosed RA-patients. More specifically, this study evaluates the construct validity of pain instruments...

1 Stanford Law School, Stanford, California, United States of America, 2 Department of Health Research and Policy, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, United States of America, 3 Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America, 4 Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Ma...