Patient-reported outcome questionnaires are frequently used across specialties to help patients explain how their illness or treatment is affecting them.  We mention four of these questionnaires in this issue, so we decided to include two summaries of original research published when the questionnaires were created, and two summaries of research reviewing existing questionnaires to evaluate their continued efficacy.  All four surveys can be found at the end of this issue in the Questionnaires Appendix; if you have a few minutes, why not grab a pencil and take one or two of them?  If you’d like to read the full research, you can search by the doi number or scan the QR code for each.

The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale: A Review with a Theoretical and Empirical Examination of Item Content and Factor Structure

R. Nicholas Carleton, Michel A. Thibodeau, Michelle J. N. Teale, Patrick G. Welch, Murray P. Abrams, Thomas Robinson, Gordon J. G. Asmundson.  PLOS One.  2013; 8(3):e58067.  doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0058067

The CES-D scale is a commonly-used measure of depression.  It was created in 1977, and since then there have been questions about the “robustness and suitability of the…CES-D model.”  This study aimed to test the validity of the survey.  Researchers concluded that practitioners may indeed benefit from the structure of the CES-D and it is used to this day.

Screening for anxiety and depression: reassessing the utility of the Zung scales

Debra A. Dunstan , Ned Scott and Anna K. Todd.  BMC Psychiatry (2017) 17:329.  doi 10.1186/s12888-017-1489-6

The authors of this research start out by acknowledging that the gold standard for diagnosis of any mental illness is the clinical interview, but they give credit to self-report questionnaires because they are helpful for screening and measuring, and are also used quite a bit in research.  In this article, the SDS is compared to two other scales to “re-examine its credentials”.  It holds up well; this scale is noted for its superiority in terms of sensitivity.  The authors did feel that the cut-off levels could be adjusted with further research.

Evaluation of health-related quality of life in patients with Cushing’s syndrome with a new questionnaire

S MWebb, X Badia, M J Barahona, A Colao, C J Strasburger, ATabarin, M O van Aken, R Pivonello, G Stalla, S W J Lamberts and J E Glusman.  European Journal of Endocrinology.  2008; 158: 623-630.  doi: 10.1530/EJE-07-0762

The CushingQoL was developed by Dr. Susan Webb and her team to address the specific needs of patients with hypercortisolism.  As you can read elsewhere in this issue, Dr. Webb has focused on quality of life research and used that expertise to design this questionnaire.  It was found to be reliable, easy to do (it takes an average of four minutes to complete), and valid.

The development of the Tuebingen Cushing’s disease quality of life inventory (Tuebingen CD-25). Part I: construction and psychometric properties

Monika Milian, Philipp Teufel, Juergen Honegger, Baptist Gallwitz, Guenter Schnauder and Tsambika

Psaras.  Clinical Endocrinology (2012) 76, 851–860.  doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2265.2011.04191.x

A few years after Dr. Susan Webb created the CushingQoL, a team of researchers in Germany created the Tuebingen CD-25 to measure health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in patients with Cushing’s.  The final results showed high reliability and validity.  They feel that more specific support can be offered to patients due to the expanded style of the survey.