| Popis: |
Introduction: Several validated clinical psychometric procedures have been developed for the severity measurement of chronic lung diseases such as COPD. In contrast, no validated tool for acute bronchitis was available. A valuable tool might be the "Bronchitis Severity Scale" BSS, a short standardized observer assessment-scale. But does it fulfil psychometric criteria of validity? Patients and methods: The relevance of the score items of BSS has been evaluated, and the data of 2,033 patients (1-92 years old; 39% males) with acute bronchitis out of eight longitudinal studies have been analysed. Results: A high content validity was found. Factor analyses indicate that the construct of one single factor of severity is justifiable. The construct validity increases about 68.5% when a second independent factor is adopted. The contents are centred on "cough" and "sputum", the main symptoms and complaints in acute bronchitis. Substantial correlations between BSS scores and patient's self-assessment as well as reduced everyday activities, emotions, and health support the concurrent validity. Evidences of predictive validity are given in 16 publications. |
