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A review of stroke outcome measures valid and reliable for administration by postal survey

Part of: Bespoke shallow archive Weizmann

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 July 2010

Elizabeth A Teale  and
John B Young
Elizabeth A Teale*
Affiliation:
Academic Unit of Elderly Care and Rehabilitation, Bradford Royal Infirmary and University of Leeds, UK
John B Young
Affiliation:
Academic Unit of Elderly Care and Rehabilitation, Bradford Royal Infirmary and University of Leeds, UK
*
Address for correspondence: Elizabeth Teale, Academic Unit of Elderly Care and Rehabilitation, Temple Bank House, Bradford Royal Infirmary, Duckworth Lane, Bradford BD9 6RJ. Email: [email protected]
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Summary

Collecting outcome measures by patient or proxy-completed postal survey in stroke research offers a pragmatic and cost-effective alternative to interview-based assessments. The psychometric properties of outcome measures cannot be assumed to be equivalent across methods of questionnaire administration. Many stroke outcome measures have variable or unproven psychometric properties when administered by post. The validity of stroke research that uses postal surveys may be improved through the adoption of questionnaires with acceptable postal psychometric properties. This review identifies 60 reports of quantitative stroke studies using one or more of 36 instruments to collect stroke outcome data by postal survey. Three of these instruments have acceptable psychometric properties for postal administration in stroke populations (the Frenchay Activities Index (FAI), Subjective Index of Physical and Social Outcome (SIPSO) and the EuroQoL (EQ5D)). Two further instruments lack evidence to support proxy reliability (Nottingham Extended Activities of Daily Living and London Handicap Score), but have otherwise acceptable properties.

Keywords

strokeoutcome assessment (health care)postal servicereproducibility of resultsquestionnaires
Type
Psychological and social gerontology
Information
Reviews in Clinical Gerontology , Volume 20 , Issue 4 , November 2010 , pp. 338 - 353
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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