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Validation of the Kidney Disease Quality of Life-Short Form questionnaire in kidney transplant patients.


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Date
2006

Authors
Barotfi S, Molnar MZ, Almasi C, Kovacs AZ, Remport A, Szeifert L, Szentkiralyi A, Vamos E, Zoller R, Eremenco S, Novak M, Mucsi I.

Subject
Journal of Psychosomatic Research

Abstract
OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to determine the basic psychometric properties, reliability, and validity of the Kidney Disease Quality of Life-Short Form (KDQOL-SF) questionnaire in kidney transplant patients. METHODS: The reliability and validity of the instrument were determined in 418 kidney transplant patients followed in a single outpatient transplant centre. RESULTS: Internal consistency of all the Medical Outcome Study Short Form 36 (SF-36) domains was very good, and the Cronbach\'s alpha value was above .70 for all but three of the disease-specific subscales. We found significant, moderate to strong negative correlations between most of the KDQOL-SF domains and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression (CES-D) scores. Finally, substantial differences in KDQOL-SF scores were seen between groups of transplanted patients who were expected to be clinically different, supporting the discriminant validity of the KDQOL-SF instrument. CONCLUSION: We propose that the KDQOL-SF is a reliable and valid tool and most of its subscales can be used to assess health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in kidney transplant patients and to compare HRQOL between different end stage renal disease (ESRD) patient populations.