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A new scale for measuring quality of life in acquired brain injury

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Abstract

Purpose

A common and frequent consequence of an acquired brain injury (ABI) is the diminished quality of life (QoL) of affected people. Because the majority of existing QoL instruments assess health-related domains, new instruments that allow for the evaluation of the QoL from an integral perspective that considers the context and personal factors of the individual are warranted. Hence, the purpose of this study is to develop and validate an instrument with these characteristics.

Methods

The CAVIDACE scale is a new 64-item specific instrument to assess QoL in people with ABI based on a third-person perspective. The validation sample comprises 421 adults with ABI, with ages ranging from 17 to 90 years (M = 53.12; SD = 14.87). The scale was completed by 97 professionals and 58 family members. Validity evidence based on the internal structure of the scale was provided through confirmatory factor analyses. Reliability was analyzed in terms of internal consistency and inter-rater reliability.

Results

The results supported the internal structure of the scale, based on the theoretical and assessment framework in which QoL is composed of eight intercorrelated first-order domains (CFI = 0.890, RMSEA = 0.065, SRMR = 0.071). The internal consistency was good or excellent for the eight domains (ordinal alpha ranging from 0.77 to 0.93). The inter-rater reliability was very high (0.97).

Conclusions

The CAVIDACE scale is found to be a specific instrument with excellent psychometric properties that is helpful for the assessment of QoL in people with ABI, both in clinical practice and for research purposes.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the funding and support of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Grant PSI2015-65193-P [MINECO/FEDER, UE]) and the three fellowships provided to María Fernández, Virginia Aguayo and Antonio M. Amor (BES-2013-065113; FPU14/01468 and FPU13/03897 – Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, respectively). We would also like to thank the people with brain injury, their relatives, the professionals and the organizations for completing the questionnaires and for their support on this project.

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The funding bodies of this research have not imposed any restrictions on free access to or publication of these research data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Psychology, University of Salamanca, Avda. de la Merced, 109-131, 37005, Salamanca, Spain

    María Fernández, Víctor B. Arias, Virginia Aguayo, Antonio M. Amor & Miguel A. Verdugo

  2. Faculty of Psychology, University of Oviedo, Plaza Feijoo, s/n., 33003, Oviedo, Spain

    Laura E. Gómez

  3. Institute on Community Integration (INICO), University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain

    María Fernández, Laura E. Gómez, Víctor B. Arias, Virginia Aguayo, Antonio M. Amor & Miguel A. Verdugo

  4. Oslo University Hospital- Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Kirkeveien 166, 0420, Oslo, Norway

    Nada Andelic

  5. Faculty of Medicine, Institute of Health and Society, Research Centre for Habilitation and Rehabilitation Models and Services (CHARM), University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Nada Andelic

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  1. María Fernández
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  2. Laura E. Gómez
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  3. Víctor B. Arias
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  7. Miguel A. Verdugo
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Correspondence to María Fernández.

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Ethics procedures have been followed, and the standards governing research involving human participants in force in Spain have been met.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Fernández, M., Gómez, L.E., Arias, V.B. et al. A new scale for measuring quality of life in acquired brain injury. Qual Life Res 28, 801–814 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-018-2047-5

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