Establishment of the functional scale for cervical spondylosis of vertebral artery type

Yi WEI; Weixiong LIANG; Yefeng CAI

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND:

At present, the scale for evaluating cervical vertigo symptoms and functions applied in clinic can evaluate the overall curative effect in patients with cervical spondylosis of vertebral artery type (CSA).However, this scale lacks the content of functional status and emotional function for evaluating daily life function.

OBJECTIVE:

To develop a functional scale for cervical spondylosis of vertebral artery type (FS-CSA) including functional status and emotional function based on the vertigo disorder scale made abroad.

DESIGN:

Cross-sectional survey, interview evaluation after pretest, internal consistency, retest consistency and construct validity were measured by the method of Chronbach's c, Pearson correlation coefficients and factor analysis, respectively.

SETTING:

Clinical Epidemiology/DME Center, Guangzhou University of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

PARTICIPANTS:

Totally 111 consecutive patients with CSA, 30 men and 81 women aged 31 to 72 years, in the Clinic for Cervical Spondylosis of Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine were recruited from May 2001 to March 2002. Altogether 36 patients had risk factors of vertebral-base artery atherosclerosis. There were 14 cases of mild vertigo, 61 cases of moderate vertigo, and 36 cases of severe vertigo. Informed consent was obtained from the participants.

METHODS:

FS-CSA was made according to clinical actual condition Functional status (going for a walk during the day by yourself, walking around the house in the dark, doing strenuous housework, social activity,traveling for business or recreation, getting into or out of bed, reading books or newspaper; each item was divided into three categories "No,anxious, worried about your illness, and feeling frustrated; each item consisted of three categories "No, Sometimes, and Yes"). Patients with CSA were evaluated by means of interview and 14 of them were retested. Internal consistency, construct validity and correlation coefficients of the scale were measured with SPSS 10.0 software.tional status dimensionality, emotional functional dimensionality as well as internal consistency of the total scale in FS-CAS Chronbach's α value was 0.875 9, 0.645 3 and 0.859 5, respectively; retest consistency value was extracted common factor was consistent with the two dimensionalities.tool quantifies the life quality of the patients with CSA and can make a uate curative effects of drugs or screen the best treatment scheme; therefore, it has clinical application value.