Design and psychometric evaluation of epilepsy-related apathy scale (E-RAS) in adults with epilepsy: a sequential exploratory mixed methods design

Abbas Shamsalinia,Fatemeh Ghaffari,Reza Ebrahimi Rad,Mozhgan Moradi,Reza Ghadimi,Leili Rabiei,Mansoureh Ashghali Farahani,Reza Masoudi

doi:10.1186/s12883-021-02139-2

Abstract

BackgroundApathy in patients with epilepsy is associated with a wide range of consequences that reduce the patient’s ability to perform social functions and participate in self-care and rehabilitation programs. Therefore, apathy is one of the important diagnoses of the healthcare team in the process of caring for epileptic patients and its dimensions need to be examined and recognized. Therefore, appropriate instruments with the sociocultural milieu of each community should be provided to health care providers. The aim of the present study was to design and measure epilepsy–related apathy scale (E-RAS) in adults with epilepsy.MethodsThis study of sequential exploratory mixed methods design was conducted in Iran from April 2019 to December 2019. In the Item generation stage, two inductive (face-to-face and semi-structured interviews with 17 adult epileptic patients) and deductive (literature review) were used. In item reduction, integration of qualitative and literature reviews and scale evaluation were accomplished. For Scale Evaluation, face, content, construct [exploratory factor analysis (EFA) (n = 360) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) (n = 200)], convergent and divergent Validity and reliability (internal consistency and stability) were investigated.ResultsThe results of EFA showed that E-RAS has four factors, namely, motivation; self-regulatory; cognition and emotional-effective. These four latent factors accounted for a total of 48.351% of the total variance in the E-RAS construct. The results of CFA showed that the 4-factor model of E-RAS has the highest fit with the data. The results of convergent and divergent validity showed that the values of composite reliability (CR) and average variance extracted (AVE) for the four factors were greater than 0.7 and 0.5, respectively, and the value of AVE for each factor was greater than CR. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the whole scale was obtained 0.815. The results of the test-retest showed that there was a significant agreement between the test and retest scores (P < 0.001).ConclusionE-RAS is a multidimensional construct consisting of 24 items, and has acceptable validity and reliability for the study of epilepsy-related apathy in adult epileptic patients.

Highlights

Apathy in patients with epilepsy is associated with a wide range of consequences that reduce the patient’s ability to perform social functions and participate in self-care and rehabilitation programs
Epilepsy in adults is associated with several problems due to its chronic nature and symptoms such as seizures and social stigma
Apathy in patients with epilepsy can have a wide range of consequences and should be investigated and identified

Summary

Introduction

Apathy in patients with epilepsy is associated with a wide range of consequences that reduce the patient’s ability to perform social functions and participate in self-care and rehabilitation programs. Neurological disorders are one of the chronic diseases that are commonly associated with apathy. Apathy can be a personality trait, suffering from a chronic illness may lead to the disease-related apathy due to long-term involvement with it and its treatment process. Some define indifference as a lack of motivation related to the patient’s level of performance in terms of age and culture, provided that lack of motivation in apathy is not due to decreased level of consciousness, cognitive impairment, emotional distress, or direct physiological effects of the use of substances such as drugs or medications [9]

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