Alternative Assessments of Functional Status of AIDS Patients. Executive Summaryand Final Report

摘要

The overall project goal was to develop and contrast two different functionalstatus assessment tools for use with people with AIDS (PWAs): a nomothetic measure (i.e. derived from a standard list of activities); and an idiographic instrument (i.e. derived from patients' indentification of salient life goals and goal attainment activities). A longitudinal study design was used involving two assessments over a six month period. The Time 1 sample included 224 PWAs drawn from: an AIDS day care program (37%), an AIDS clinic (45%), and an in-patient setting (18.3%). The majority of respondents were male (86%) with a mean age of 39.5 years. Over 44 percent were African-American or Latino. By Time 2, 45 respondents had died, 18 could not be located, 11 were too sick to be interviewed, and nine refused to participate. Both nomothetic and idographic tools, featuring multiple domains (e.g. sexual functioning, drug use) and dimensions (e.g. fatigue, hard/easy to do) of functioning, were developed. Field test results showed that these tools were valid and reliable and that they provided complementary information concerning an individual's functional performance. To ensure maximum sensitivity, it is recommended that functional assessment tools combine both nomothetic and idiographic techniques; and that tools designed for AIDS populations include domains and dimensions of functioning that reflect the impact of HIV disease progression on individual functioning.