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The functional status questionnaire

Reliability and validity when used in primary care

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An Erratum to this article was published on 01 November 1986

Abstract

A comprehensive functional assessment requires thorough and careful inquiry, which is difficult to accomplish in most busy clinical practices. This paper examines the reliability and validity of the Functional Status Questionnaire (FSQ), a brief, standardized, self-administered questionnaire designed to provide a comprehensive and feasible assessment of physical, psychological, social and role function in ambulatory patients. The FSQ can be completed and computer-scored in minutes to produce a one-page report which includes six summated-rating scale scores and six single-item scores. The clinician can use this report both to screen for and to monitor patients’ functional status. In this study, the FSQ was administered to 497 regular users of Boston’s Beth Israel Hospital’ Healthcare Associates and 656 regular users of 76 internal medicine practices in Los Angeles. The data demonstrate that the FSQ produces reliable sub-scales with construct validity. The authors believe the FSQ addresses many of the problems behind the slow diffusion into primary care of systematic functional assessment.

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A erratum to this article is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF02596437

Received from the Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, and the University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California

Supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Foundation.

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Jette, A.M., Davies, A.R., Cleary, P.D. et al. The functional status questionnaire. J Gen Intern Med 1, 143–149 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02602324

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02602324

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