RESEARCH ARTICLE
A Self-administered Version of the Functioning Assessment Short Test for Use in Population-based Studies: A Pilot Study
Christoph Riegler1, 2, *, Silke Wiedmann1, 3, Viktoria Rücker1, Henning Teismann4, Klaus Berger4, Stefan Störk5, 6, Eduard Vieta7, Hermann Faller8, Bernhard T Baune9, 10, #, Peter U Heuschmann1, 5, 11, #
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2020Volume: 16
First Page: 192
Last Page: 203
Publisher ID: CPEMH-16-192
DOI: 10.2174/1745017902016010192
Article History:
Received Date: 9/4/2020Revision Received Date: 19/7/2020
Acceptance Date: 24/7/2020
Electronic publication date: 25/09/2020
Collection year: 2020
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background:
The Functioning Assessment Short Test (FAST) is an interviewer-administered scale assessing functional impairment originally developed for psychiatric patients.
Objectives:
To adapt the FAST for the general population, we developed a self-administered version of the scale and assessed its properties in a pilot study.
Methods:
The original FAST scale was translated into German via forward and backward translation. Afterwards, we adjusted the scale for self-administered application and inquired participants from two ongoing studies in Germany, ‘STAAB’ (Würzburg) and ‘BiDirect’ (Münster), both recruiting subjects from the general population across a wide age range (STAAB: 30-79 years, BiDirect: 35-65 years). To assess reliability, agreement of self-assessment with proxy-assessment by partners was measured via intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) over the FAST score. Construct validity was estimated by conducting correlations with validated scales of depression (PHQ-9), anxiety (GAD-7), and health-related quality of life (SF-12) and regression analyses using these scales besides potentially disabling comorbidities (e.g. Chronic Back Pain (CBP)).
Results:
Participants (n=54) had a median age of 57.0 years (quartiles: 49.8, 65.3), 46.3% were female. Reliability was moderate: ICC 0.50 (95% CI 0.46-0.54). The FAST score significantly correlated with PHQ-9, GAD-7, and the mental sub-scale of SF-12. In univariable linear regression, all three scales and chronic back pain explained variance of the FAST score. In multivariable analysis, only CBP and the SF-12 remained significant predictors.
Conclusion:
The German self-administered version of the FAST yielded moderate psychometric properties in this pilot study, indicating its applicability to assess functional impairment in the general population.
