Changes in the FIQR that address issues in
the original FIQ
The
Original
FIQ was subdivided into 3
domains; the "functional" domain,
the "overall" domain and the "symptom"
domain; these 3 domains have been
retained in the FIQR. However,
since the publication of the FIQ in
1991,
several issues regarding ethocultural
usage, symptom relevance and arcane
scoring became apparent. These issues have
been addressed in the FIQR.
1. The
original functional domain was
originally devised with middle class
Caucasian women in mind (as this was the
predominant group seen in the OHSU
clinic). Therefore, with the help of a
patient focus group, a completely new
and more generic set of 9 questions
were developed for the functional domain
of the FIQR:
1. Brush or comb your hair
2. Walk continuously for 20 minutes
3. Prepare a homemade meal
4. Vacuum, scrub or sweep floors
5. Lift and carry a bag full of
groceries
6. Climb one flight of stairs
7. Change bed sheets
8. Sit in a chair for 45 minutes
9. Go shopping for groceries
2. The
original overall domain asked
a question regarding whether
patients could work, including
housework. This introduced a an
interpretation dilemma, as it assumed
that doing housework involved the same
time constraints and effort as holding
down a full time job. Therefore, the
2 overall domain questions were
phrased in terms as to the extent that
fibromyalgia interfered with the
patient's goals for the week and the
extent that the patient felt overwhelmed
by their fibromyalgia symptoms:
1.
Fibromyalgia prevented me from
accomplishing goals for the week
2. I was completely overwhelmed by my
fibromyalgia symptoms
3. The
original symptom domain did
not contain some feature of fibromyalgia
that became recognized as clinically
relevant after its introduction in 1991.
Therefore the FIQR was modified
by adding 4 new questions to take into
account the contemporary clinical
spectrum of fibromyalgia. These
additional questions are related to memory,
balance, tenderness and environmental
sensitivity. here are the 10
symptom domain questions:
Tenderness
is a universal feature of fibromyalgia
patients; but has not been incorporated
into fibromyalgia related
questionnaires.This omission is corrected in the FIQR; with this question it should be
possible to compare objective measures
of tenderness (e.g. the myalgic score)
against the patient's report of this
symptom. Here are the 10
symptom domain questions:
1.
Please rate your
level of pain
2. Please rate your level of energy
3. Please rate your level of stiffness
4. Please rate the quality of your sleep
5. Please rate your level of depression
6. Please rate your level of memory
problems
7. Please rate your level of anxiety
8. Please rate your level of
tenderness to touch
9. Please rate your level of balance
problems
10. Please rate your level of
sensitivity to loud noises, bright
lights, odors and cold
4.
The
scoring of the original FIQ
was
cumbersome and time-consuming. The FIQR
has all questions rated on a 0 -10
scale, and scoring is simply a matter of
adding the score for each domain and
applying a "normalization" factor to
each of the 3 domain scores. The
functional domain score is divided by 3,
the overall domain score is divided by 1
(i.e. it is left unchanged), and the
symptom domain score is divided by 2.
The total FIQR score is the sum
of the 3 normalized domain scores.
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