Rasch Analysis of the Dermatology Life Quality Index Reveals Limited Application to Chinese Patients with Skin Disease

Authors

  • Zehui He
  • Riccardo Lo Martire
  • Chuanjian Lu
  • Hongxia Liu
  • Lin Ma
  • Ying Huang
  • Yongmei Li
  • Liyun Sun
  • Yanping Bai
  • Wali Liu
  • Xushan Zha

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.2340/00015555-2742

Keywords:

Dermatology Life Quality Index, skin disease, Chinese, Rasch analysis, differential item functioning

Abstract

The objective of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI) and to assess the invariance of its items with respect to several patient parameters via Rasch analysis. Data were aggregated from 9,845 patients with various skin diseases across 9 hospitals in different regions of China. The response structure, local independence, and reliability of the DLQI scale were analysed in a partial credit model, and differential item functioning (DIF) across region, disease, sex, and age were assessed with a Mantel-Haenszel procedure. Although acceptable scale reliability (Person Separation Index=2.3) was obtained, several problems were revealed, including disordered response thresholds, misfitting items, DIF by geogra?phical region and disease, and mis-targeting patients with mild impairment regarding health-related quality of life (HRQL). In conclusion, the DLQI provides inadequate information on patients? impairments in HRQL, and the application of the DLQI in Chinese patients with skin disease is limited.

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Published

2017-09-04

How to Cite

He, Z., Lo Martire, R., Lu, C., Liu, H., Ma, L., Huang, Y., Li, Y., Sun, L., Bai, Y., Liu, W., & Zha, X. (2017). Rasch Analysis of the Dermatology Life Quality Index Reveals Limited Application to Chinese Patients with Skin Disease. Acta Dermato-Venereologica, 98(1), 59–64. https://doi.org/10.2340/00015555-2742

Issue

Vol. 98 No. 1 (2018): January

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2017 Zehui He, Riccardo Lo Martire, Chuanjian Lu, Hongxia Liu, Lin Ma, Ying Huang, Yongmei Li, Liyun Sun, Yanping Bai, Wali Liu, Xushan Zha

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

All digitalized ActaDV contents is available freely online. The Society for Publication of Acta Dermato-Venereologica owns the copyright for all material published until volume 88 (2008) and as from volume 89 (2009) the journal has been published fully Open Access, meaning the authors retain copyright to their work.

Unless otherwise specified, all Open Access articles are published under CC-BY-NC licences, allowing third parties to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format and to remix, transform, and build upon the material for non-commercial purposes, provided proper attribution to the original work.

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