1,720,985 research outputs found
Quality of life in asthma: development of a questionnaire for parents of asthmatic children
No full textA new questionnaire specifically designed for patients affected by chronic obstructive pulmonary disease The Italian Health Status Questionnaire
No full textThe aim of this study was to develop a specific and valid questionnaire
for Italian COPD patients, living on the north or the south of Italy—which are two
culturally distinct areas.
The project consisted in three steps: (1) initial item set generation to identify
items relevant to both genders, all ages and both regions; (2) item reduction
including tests of regional specificity; (3) tests of internal validity using itemresponse
theory using Rasch one-parameter modelling.
Ninty-six COPD patients (mean aged 69 yr; 78 Male) completed the original set of
124 items of the Italian Health Status Questionnaire (IHSQ). Item reduction was
carried out using an established standardised approach employing classical
psychometric test theory. The internal construct validity of the 47 items that
survived this process were tested to determine whether they constituted a
unidimensional construct ‘‘impaired health due to COPD’’ using Rasch analysis. This
showed that the questionnaire had very good psychometric properties, with an
excellent Person Separation Index of 0.95 and no evidence of bias due to item–trait
interaction (w2
104 1⁄4 127:1, P 1⁄4 n:s:
Quality of life in asthma and COPD: is it measurable in primary care?
No full textBackground. An observational cross-sectional study under the acronym CORDIS (Chronic Obstructive Respiratory
Disease - Italian Study), performed in primary care centers to evaluate the knowledge and the degree
of control of physician-diagnosed asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) by Italian General
Practitioners (GPs). The study consisted of two phases, CORDIS-A and CORDIS-B. The CORDIS-B study
included measurement of the quality of life (QoL) of physician-diagnosed asthma and COPD patients.
Aim. Aim of the study was to evaluate the applicability of QoL assessment by means of the SF-12 Questionnaire
in primary care in subjects with asthma or COPD. Secondary, to evaluate the impact of the two
respiratory diseases on patients’ QoL and to measure the correlation between patients’ and GPs’ opinion on
patients’ health status.
Methods. Patients enrolled in the study were males and females aged more than 18 years, with a physician
(GP or specialist) diagnosis of asthma and/or COPD and treated from at least 12 months with a short-term
inhaled β2-agonist, given alone or as component of a multiple therapy. Patients gave written informed consent
to participate to the study and for personal data use. Each patient enrolled in the study privately filled in the
QoL SF-12 questionnaire; both the patient and the GP gave independently the judgement of patient’s health
(Excellent, Very good, Good, Acceptable, Poor) and the two opinions were compared.
Results. Complete QoL data were available for 11,642 subjects with a mean age of 57 ± 17 years and a
prevalence of males of 55.3%. The percentage of patients with asthma, COPD, and asthma plus COPD was
47.2%, 29.2% and 23.6%, respectively. At least one concomitant disease was present in 67% of patients.
In terms of evaluation of patient’s health status, a perfect concordance between the two types of evaluators
was found in 54.6%; the percentage increased up to 95% when considering just one category of difference
between the GP’s and the patient’s evaluation. As for the general Italian population, no substantial gender
difference was found in our study for the SF-12 “Physical Component Summary” (PCS) and “Mental Component
Summary” (MCS) mean scores. However, the CORDIS-B subjects showed more impaired health status
in comparison to general population. Asthmatic patients showed better PCS and MCS scores in comparison
to patients with COPD or asthma plus COPD (p < 0.0001).
Conclusions. This study shows that a) the SF-12 Questionnaire is a simple and useful tool to measure the
QoL of patients with asthma and COPD in primary care; b) there was a very good agreement in the subjective
evaluation of the patient’s health status between GP and patient; c) mental/psychological component is
underestimated both by GP and patient
A questionnaire specifically designed for Italian patients affected by Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. Criteria to choose the optimal number of items using Simple Logistic models
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The Italian health status questionnaire. A new questionnaire specifically designed for patients affected by cronic obstructive pulmonary disease
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Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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