Towards a composite scoring solution for the Neurobehavioral Functioning Inventory

Little research has been conducted towards the development and evaluation o f a measure of quality of life specific to head/brain injury populations. A ccordingly, we examined responses to the Neurobehavioral Functioning Invent ory in the context of a clinical trial for head injury patients (n = 655) c onducted in 14 countries. To reduce the 66 item scale into a smaller number of composite scales, principal components analysis was conducted. Scales w ere constructed assessing four categories of symptoms: cognitive deficits, depression, aggression and somatization. The internal reliabilities (alpha coefficient) of the four scales were generally acceptable (range = 0.79-0.9 2). Scores on all four scales correlated significantly with patient-rated o verall quality of life and all but the aggression scale correlated signific antly with overall clinical severity. The need for more formal evaluation o f this and other disease-specific measures is discussed. Qual. Life Res. 8: 17-24 (C) 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers.