Symptoms Impact Hierarchy Study
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Symptom Impact Hierarchy Study – preliminary testing of a generic impact assessment survey for physical symptoms
IRAS ID
124590
Contact name
Christopher Burton
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Aberdeen
Research summary
For many medical conditions there are established and validated patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) which measure not just the severity or persistence of symptoms, but also their impact on daily life and activities.
However, many patients experience physical symptoms which are related to disorders of body function and the way bodily signals are processed in the brain more than to clearly defined disease. Often patients experience multiple physical symptoms. For them, there are few generic measures of symptom impact and clinical trials tend to focus on either the number of symptoms or an overall measure of quality of life which may be insufficiently sensitive to detect clinically meaningful changes in symptom impact.
We have developed a new generic PROM which can be used for a wide range of symptoms. It is based on work which suggests that there is a consistent hierarchy of distress (from symptoms present but not bothering, through personal impact, impact on others, to tolerable). We intend to conduct a first pilot test of it with patients reporting a wide range of symptoms and examine whether the pattern of the scale is consistently found.
REC name
North of Scotland Research Ethics Committee 1
REC reference
13/NS/0168
Date of REC Opinion
12 Dec 2013
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion