Sorayya Askari1, Lesley K Fellows2, Marie-Josée Brouillette3, Nancy E Mayo4,5. 1. School of Occupational Therapy, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada. 2. Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Faculty of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada. 3. Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada. 4. School of Physical and Occupational Therapy, Faculty of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada. nancy.mayo@mcgill.ca. 5. Division of Clinical Epidemiology and Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation (CORE), McGill University Health Center - Research Institute, 5252 de Maisonneuve, Office 2B.43, Montreal, QC, H4A 3S5, Canada. nancy.mayo@mcgill.ca.
Abstract
PURPOSE: People living with HIV may experience some degree of mild cognitive impairment. They are best placed to report on their cognitive symptoms, but no HIV-specific questionnaire exists to elicit these concerns. This study aimed to validate a set of items to form a measure METHODS: 48 items were tested on an initial sample of 204 people with HIV. Rasch analysis was used to identify those that fit a hierarchical continuum. The hierarchy was validated on a new sample of 703 people with HIV and a sample of 484 people without HIV. RESULTS: 18 items fit the model and formed the Communicating Cognitive Concerns Questionnaire (C3Q). The items spanned the full range of cognitive ability, distinguished between people working and not working, and correlated with other self-report outcomes such as mental health (0.56) and work productivity (0.60), although showed a low correlation with cognitive test performance. CONCLUSION: The C3Q is the first questionnaire specifically developed for use among people with HIV. While not strongly associated with cognitive test performance, it reflects real-life concerns of people and is associated with mood, work, and work productivity. It is a needed step in assessing cognition in this population.
PURPOSE:People living with HIV may experience some degree of mild cognitive impairment. They are best placed to report on their cognitive symptoms, but no HIV-specific questionnaire exists to elicit these concerns. This study aimed to validate a set of items to form a measure METHODS: 48 items were tested on an initial sample of 204 people with HIV. Rasch analysis was used to identify those that fit a hierarchical continuum. The hierarchy was validated on a new sample of 703 people with HIV and a sample of 484 people without HIV. RESULTS: 18 items fit the model and formed the Communicating Cognitive Concerns Questionnaire (C3Q). The items spanned the full range of cognitive ability, distinguished between people working and not working, and correlated with other self-report outcomes such as mental health (0.56) and work productivity (0.60), although showed a low correlation with cognitive test performance. CONCLUSION: The C3Q is the first questionnaire specifically developed for use among people with HIV. While not strongly associated with cognitive test performance, it reflects real-life concerns of people and is associated with mood, work, and work productivity. It is a needed step in assessing cognition in this population.