Validation of Neuro-QoL and PROMIS Mental Health Patient Reported Outcome Measures in Persons with Huntington Disease.

BACKGROUND

Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) for mental health are important for persons with Huntington disease (HD) who commonly experience symptoms of depression, anxiety, irritability, anger, aggression, and apathy. Given this, there is a need for reliable and valid patient-reported outcomes measures of mental health for use as patient-centered outcomes in clinical trials.

OBJECTIVE

Thus, the purpose of this study was to establish the psychometric properties (i.e., reliability and validity) of six Neuro-QoL and PROMIS mental health measures to support their clinical utility in persons with HD.

METHODS

294 individuals with premanifest (n = 102) or manifest HD (n = 131 early HD; n = 61 late HD) completed Neuro-QoL/PROMIS measures of Emotional and Behavioral Dyscontrol, Positive Affect and Well-Being, Stigma, Anger, Anxiety, and Depression, legacy measures of self-reported mental health, and clinician-rated assessments of functioning.

RESULTS

Convergent validity and discriminant validity for the Neuro-QoL and PROMIS measures of Emotional and Behavioral Dyscontrol, Positive Affect and Well-Being, Stigma, Anger, Anxiety, and Depression, were supported in persons with HD. Neuro-QoL measures of Anxiety and Depression also demonstrated moderate sensitivity and specificity (i.e., they were able to distinguish between individuals with and without clinically significant anxiety and depression).

CONCLUSIONS

Findings provide psychometric support for the clinical utility of the Neuro-QoL/PROMIS measures of mental health measures in persons with HD. As such, these measures should be considered for the standardized assessment of health-related quality of life in persons with HD.