Evaluation of the PMR-Impact Scale (PMR-IS)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Evaluation of the construct validity, test re-test reliability and responsiveness of the PMR-IS
IRAS ID
269455
Contact name
Helen Twohig
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 5 months, 2 days
Research summary
PMR affects people in older age groups causing pain, stiffness and disability. It is mainly treated with steroid medication which itself can cause significant side effects and health problems. It is an under-researched condition and there are wide variations in treatment. More research is needed to inform clinical practice and improve patient care.
Patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) are widely used in other conditions to guide assessment and treatment and to support aspects of care that patients value. PMR is particularly well suited to being assessed by patient based outcomes given the effects of the condition, its varied presentation and course and the often difficult balance between benefits versus side effects of treatment. A provisional set of outcome measures to be used in clinical trials for PMR has recently been published and highlights the limited ability of the existing measures to assess the effects of PMR on patients’ lives. We therefore aim to develop a PROM specifically for
PMR to fill this gap.
We carried out a study of patient experiences of having PMR and used data from this to develop potential questions (items) for a PROM. The draft PROM was tested in a postal survey of 256 people with PMR and the data was used to inform item reduction, dimension structure and scoring of the PROM.
The refined PROM, named the PMR-Impact Scale (PMR-IS) now needs to evaluated to assess its measurement properties. This will be done by recruiting a further sample of people with the condition to complete the PMR-IS and two other related questionnaires to allow comparison. Participants will be recruited from both primary and secondary care. Established statistical methods will be used to evaluate its construct validity, test-retest reliability and responsiveness.REC name
South Central - Hampshire B Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/SC/0525
Date of REC Opinion
10 Oct 2019
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion