Disability and frailty in people living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus in regional Australia: A cross-sectional study with a measurement property assessment of the HIV Disability Questionnaire.

To measure disability and frailty and assess measurement properties of the HIV Disability Questionnaire (HDQ) in outer regional Australian people living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

This cross-sectional, validity and reliability study included community-dwelling outer regional Australian adults with HIV. Participants completed the self-reported World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule 2.0 (WHODAS; scored 0-100), 5-Question Frail Scale (scored 0-5) and HDQ (scored 0-100). Median scores (Q1, Q3) for disability (WHODAS) and frailty (Frail Scale) were reported. HDQ validity was tested based on 16 a priori hypothesized relationships between WHODAS, Frail Scale and HDQ scores (threshold ≥75% confirmed), and HDQ internal consistency with Cronbach's alpha (acceptability threshold ≥ 0.70). Seven days after the initial completion, the HDQ was re-administered for test-retest reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient, acceptability threshold ≥ 0.75).

Fifty participants were recruited, with a median age 55. Eighty-eight percent were male, and 38 participants completed the second HDQ. The median (Q1, Q3) scores were: WHODAS 9 (3,17), with domain scores ranging from 0 to 56. Pre-frailty (score 1-2) and Frailty (score 3-5) were present in 27% and 13% of participants, respectively. The HDQ demonstrated construct validity (81% hypotheses confirmed), internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha ≥ 0.79), except in the Episodic scale-Social inclusion domain (alpha = 0.34), and good test-retest reliability for all Presence and Severity domains (ICC range: 0.77-0.94).

Disability, frailty and pre-frailty exist in this sample of outer regional Australians living with HIV. The HDQ showed acceptable construct validity, internal consistency and test-retest reliability to measure disability in this population.

Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ACTRN12623000090617).
Mental Health
Care/Management

Authors

Flavell Flavell, Crowe Crowe, Kenchington Kenchington, Jones Jones, Barker Barker, O'Brien O'Brien
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