Expanding Parkinson Disease Assessment To Psychosocial Functioning

Main Category: Parkinson's Disease
Article Date: 31 Jul 2008 - 3:00 PDT

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A cross-national project on Parkinson disease assessment calls the attention for the role of behavioral factors in Parkinson disease. The study points to new trends in Parkinson's disease assessment, which eventually would expand to social functioning ascertainment.

The present study is part of the ELEP project, a longitudinal study based at the Carlos III Institute of Health (Madrid, Spain), which represents a cross-national effort to develop assessment procedures for non-motor symptoms of PD. There is evidence indicating that, in addition to the motor disorder, the psychological manifestations of PD are major factors accounting for disability and quality of life deterioration. The ELEP is aimed at applying a comprehensive assessment of clinical and psychosocial features particular to PD to expand the current knowledge about the relationship between manifestations of the disease and psychosocial impact on patients and caregivers over time.

The study is the first to systematically assess the technical features of the Scales for Outcomes in Parkinson's Disease-Psychosocial Questionnaire (SCOPA-PS) in a cross-national study of Latin American countries. The results are satisfactory as major findings were consistent across countries and showed that SCOPA-PS possesses appropriate psychometric properties in the socio-cultural setting in which it was applied.

Psychological functioning was found to vary consistently with illness duration and severity while it correlated with the emotional status of the participants and was closely associated to the health-related quality of life. The study was co-authored by Javier Virués-Ortega, Pablo Martinez-Martin, et al, and will be published in Value in Health.

Value in Health (ISSN 1098-3015) publishes papers, concepts, and ideas that advance the field of pharmacoeconomics and outcomes research and help health care leaders to make decisions that are solidly evidence-based. The journal is published bi-monthly and has a regular readership of over 4,000 clinicians, decision-makers, and researchers worldwide.

ISPOR is a nonprofit, international organization that strives to translate pharmacoeconomics and outcomes research into practice to ensure that society allocates scarce health care resources wisely, fairly, and efficiently.

Value in Health Volume 12 Issue 2 -March/April 2009
ABSTRACT

http://www.ispor.org

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