Abstract
BackgroundDue to an ageing population, multimorbidity is becoming more common. Treatment burden (the effort required of patients to look after their health and the impact this has on their wellbeing) is prevalent in patients with multimorbidity. The Multimorbidity Treatment Burden Questionnaire (MTBQ) is a patient-reported outcome measure of treatment burden that has been validated amongst patients with multimorbidity in the UK. The aim of this study was to translate and culturally adapt the MTBQ into Chinese and to assess its reliability and validity in elderly patients with multimorbidity in hospital.MethodsThe original English version of the MTBQ was translated into Chinese using Brislin’s model of cross-culture translation. The C-MTBQ was piloted on a sample of 30 elderly patients with multimorbidity prior to being completed by 156 Chinese elderly patients with multimorbidity recruited from a hospital in Zhengzhou, China. We examined the proportion of missing data, the distribution of responses and floor and ceiling effects for each question. Factor analysis, Cronbach’s alpha, intraclass coefficient and Spearman’s rank correlations assessed dimensional structure, internal consistency reliability, test-retest reliability and criterion validity, respectively.ResultsThe average age of the respondents was 73.5 years (range 60–99 years). The median C-MTBQ global score was 20.8 (interquartile range 12.5–29.2). Significant floor effects were seen for all items. Factor analysis supported a three-factor structure. The C-MTBQ had high internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha coefficient, 0.76) and test-retest reliability (the intraclass correlation coefficient, 0.944), the correlations between every item and global scores scored > 0.4. The scale content validity index(S-CVI) was 0.89, and the item level content validity index(I-CVI)was 0.83 ~ 1.00. The criterion validity was 0.875.ConclusionThe Chinese version of MTBQ showed satisfactory reliability and validity in elderly patients with multimorbidity, and could be used as a tool to measure treatment burden of elderly patients with multimorbidity in hospital.
Highlights
Due to an ageing population, multimorbidity is becoming more common
Patients with multimorbidity experience higher disease burden than patients with single conditions and are at increased risk of high treatment burden- the effort required of patients to look after their health and the impact this has on their general wellbeing [4, 5]
There is one existing generic measure of treatment burden that has been translated into Chinese, known as the Chinese Treatment Burden Questionnaire (C-TBQ)
Summary
Due to an ageing population, multimorbidity is becoming more common. Treatment burden (the effort required of patients to look after their health and the impact this has on their wellbeing) is prevalent in patients with multimorbidity. Patients with multimorbidity experience higher disease burden than patients with single conditions and are at increased risk of high treatment burden- the effort required of patients to look after their health and the impact this has on their general wellbeing (e.g. attending multiple appointments with different health professionals, taking medicines at different times in the day) [4, 5]. There is one existing generic measure of treatment burden that has been translated into Chinese, known as the Chinese Treatment Burden Questionnaire (C-TBQ). This measure was validated in a younger study population (median age 62 years). It is a longer questionnaire to complete with 15 questions
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