A comparison of the SF‐36 and Nottingham Health Profile in patients with chronic neuropathic pain

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the psychometric properties of two generic health-related quality of life (HRQoL) instruments, the Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) and the Nottingham Health Profile (NHP) in a group of patients with chronic peripheral neuropathic pain (PNP). The sample consisted of 126 adults (56 men and 70 women) with PNP following a lesion of a peripheral nerve, spinal nerve or nerve root or patients with post-herpetic neuralgia. The battery of tests included visual analogue scales (VASs) for pain assessment and global rating of health and verbal rating scales of pain and other symptoms, as well as patient descriptors. The SF-36 had higher internal consistency reliability coefficients (alpha=0.79, range 0.70-0.90) than the NHP (alpha=0.68, range 0.49-0.79). Correlations between comparable dimensions of the two instruments were significant (range from -0.79 for the physical and mental dimensions to -0.29 for the social dimension) indicating a moderate degree of convergent validity. The study population had significantly worse scores on all dimensions of the two instruments when compared with the general population. Subjects with high VAS scores for pain on movement and those with low global health ratings had poorer scores on the both instruments. Overall, the SF-36 performed somewhat better on psychometric testing than did the NHP. However, the NHP contains dimensions such as sleep and more pain items which might be of particular importance in the PNP population. Since the instruments are short, both could be retained for continued testing in outcome studies of this population.

The Prevalence, Predictors, and Consequences of Peripheral Sensory Neuropathy in Older Patients

“…This has been documented by others, [45][46][47] although we were unable to confirm the association with falls that others have observed. 10 -14,32,48 This supports our contention that peripheral neuropathy in the elderly is not trivial.…”

Does Neuropathic Pain Affect the Quality of Sleep?

“…It can be considered that NP has multidimensional effects on sleep. Furthermore, previous studies on NP showed that patients may present with impairments in all aspects of HRQoL, one of which is sleep disturbance that is reported by 88% of patients [17,18]. Because comorbid sleep disturbances in patients with NP have an impact on QoL, a comprehensive evaluation of patients with NP should include an assessment of QoS, an important component of QoL.…”

Agreement of NHP and Sf-36 Social Domains: An Exploratory Study

“…Though, SF/SF-36 showed good internal consistency when assessed by other researchers who have investigated patients with sensory hyperreactivity 14 , patients after stroke 21 , physically active elderly 10 , patients with hereditary neuromuscular disease 11 , among others 6,17 , Therefore, considering the results of current study and previously published evidence, both domains may be considered to have moderate to good internal consistency. This may be mutable according to limitations imposed by different kinds of disease.…”

“…This value is the minimum considered as a good correlation in the studies reviewed 8,[14][15][16][17][18][19] . Thereby using G * Power 3.1.9.2 software, alpha of 5%, power of 80% and 0.70 correlation, it was calculated a sample of 84 subjects.…”