Rationale:
Anger, anxiety, depression, social isolation and emotional guardedness have all been shown in research to affect cardiopulmonary patients' risk for future incidence and rehab progress. Rehab programs typically use screening tools that measure only one risk factor, and therefore neglect several factors in their assessment or outcomes research. For the past four years, the authors have been developing an instrument (Psychosocial Risk Factor Survey - PRFS) to assess anger/hostility, anxiety, depression, social isolation and emotional guardedness in patients with cardiovascular and pulmonary disease. The intent of this particular study was to assess the validity of the final version of the PRFS.
Objectives:
Findings from research designed to measure the construct validity of the PRFS relevant to the above risk factors in rehab patient populations are presented with an explanation of the rationale behind the test's design.
Methodology:
The State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory 2 (STAXI-2), the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), the Beck Depression Inventory 2 (BDI-2), the Life Stressors and Social Resources Inventory-Adult Form (LISRES-A), and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale were used to compare the construct validity of the PRFS for each psychosocial construct. These tests were administered to a sample of 155 patients. As well, relevant subscales of the Symptom Checklist 90-Revised (SCL-90-R) were compared to the similar scales on the PRFS.
Results:
The PRFS scales all correlated significantly at the P < 0.001 level (2-tailed) with all of their respective validating single construct measures and the related measures on the SCL-90-R.
Conclusion:
The authors conclude that, based on the cumulative statistics regarding the validation and reliability of this version of the PRFS, there is sufficient statistical support for this measure to be used as a practical screening assessment tool that comprehensively targets psychosocial risk factors of patients in cardiopulmonary rehabilitation programs.