The COVID-19 Yorkshire Rehabilitation Scale (C19-YRS): Application and psychometric analysis in a post-COVID-19 syndrome cohort.

Rory J O'Connor,Mike Horton,Amy Parkin,Stephen J Halpin,Jeremy Gee,Manoj Sivan,Denise Ross,Nick Preston,Sophie Makower

doi:10.1002/jmv.27415

Abstract

As our understanding of the nature and prevalence of post‐coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) syndrome (PCS) is increasing, a measure of the impact of COVID‐19 could provide valuable insights into patients' perceptions in clinical trials and epidemiological studies as well as routine clinical practice. To evaluate the clinical usefulness and psychometric properties of the COVID‐19 Yorkshire Rehabilitation Scale (C19‐YRS) in patients with PCS, a prospective, observational study of 187 consecutive patients attending a post‐COVID‐19 rehabilitation clinic was conducted. The C19‐YRS was used to record patients' symptoms, functioning, and disability. A global health question was used to measure the overall impact of PCS on health. Classical psychometric methods (data quality, scaling assumptions, targeting, reliability, and validity) were used to assess the C19‐YRS. For the total group, missing data were low, scaling and targeting assumptions were satisfied, and internal consistency was high (Cronbach's α = 0.891). Relationships between the overall perception of health and patients' reports of symptoms, functioning, and disability demonstrated good concordance. This is the first study to examine the psychometric properties of an outcome measure in patients with PCS. In this sample of patients, the C19‐YRS was clinically useful and satisfied standard psychometric criteria, providing preliminary evidence of its suitability as a measure of PCS.

Highlights

The medium and long‐term problems experienced by survivors of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) are emerging, with over one million people in the UK who contracted COVID‐19 reporting symptoms and functional problems more than 4 weeks after onset of the acute illness.[1]
Almost 700 000 people report ongoing impact on their health and functioning more than 12 weeks after the acute infection, and this combination of symptoms and functional difficulties is recognized as a new syndrome called “Long COVID” (LC) or post‐COVID‐19 syndrome (PCS).[1]
Using symptoms and functional difficulties of PCS that were being reported by survivors of acute COVID‐19 infection and the healthcare professionals involved in their care from across the clinical sites in the Yorkshire region,[7] we developed a condition‐specific measure for PCS

Summary

Introduction

The medium and long‐term problems experienced by survivors of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) are emerging, with over one million people in the UK who contracted COVID‐19 reporting symptoms and functional problems more than 4 weeks after onset of the acute illness.[1]. While generic assessments are available, these have been shown to lack responsiveness or be useful only for discriminative purposes.[4,5]

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Conclusion