Validity of the AusTOM scales: A comparison of the AusTOMs and EuroQol-5D

Health and Quality of Life Outcomes

Nicholas Taylor²  Jemma Skeat¹  Alison Perry¹  Dianne Duncombe⁴  Stephen J Duckett³  Carolyn A Unsworth⁴ 

[1] School of Human Communication Sciences, La Trobe University, Melbourne Vic 3086, Australia;School of Physiotherapy, La Trobe University, Melbourne Vic 3086, Australia;School of Public Health, La Trobe University, Melbourne Vic 3086, Australia;School of Occupational Therapy, La Trobe University, Melbourne Vic 3086, Australia

关键词: assessment;    outcomes;   

Others  :  1216925
DOI  :  10.1186/1477-7525-2-64

 received in 2004-07-05, accepted in 2004-11-13,  发布年份 2004

【 摘 要 】

Background

Clinicians require brief outcome measures in their busy daily practice to document global client outcomes. Based on the UK Therapy Outcome Measure, the Australian Therapy Outcome Measures were designed to capture global therapy outcomes of occupational therapy, physiotherapy and speech pathology in the Australian clinical context. The aim of this study was to investigate the construct (convergent) validity of the Australian Therapy Outcome Measures (AusTOMs) by comparing it with the EuroQuol-5D (EQ-5D).

Methods

The research was a prospective, longitudinal cohort study, with data collected over a seven month time period. The study was conducted at a total of 13 metropolitan and rural health-care sites including acute, sub-acute and community facilities. Two-hundred and five clients were asked to score themselves on the EQ-5D, and the same clients were scored by approximately 115 therapists (physiotherapists, speech pathologists and occupational therapists) using the AusTOMs at admission and discharge. Clients were consecutive admissions who agreed to participate in the study. Clients of all diagnoses, aged 18 years and over (a criteria of the EQ-5D), and able to give informed consent were scored on the measures. Spearman rank order correlation coefficients were used to analyze the relationships between scores from the two tools. The clients were scored on the AusTOMs and EQ-5D.

Results

There were many health care areas where correlations were expected and found between scores on the AusTOMs and the EQ-5D.

Conclusion

In the quest to measure the effectiveness of therapy services, managers, health care founders and clinicians are urgently seeking to undertake the first step by identifying tools that can measure therapy outcome. AusTOMs is one tool that can measure global client outcomes following therapy. In this study, it was found that on the whole, the AusTOMs and the EQ-5D measure similar constructs. Hence, although the validity of a tool is never 'proven', this study offers preliminary support for the construct validity of AusTOMs.

【 授权许可】

   
2004 Unsworth et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

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