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Ryan 2017 (PACE Trial data) Psychometric properties & factor structure of a shortened version of Cognitive Behavioural Responses Questionnaire (CBRQ)

Discussion in 'Psychosomatic research - ME/CFS and Long Covid' started by Dolphin, Nov 9, 2017.

  1. Dolphin

    Dolphin Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Psychosomatic Medicine. Publish Ahead of Print():, OCT 2017

    Psychometric properties & factor structure of a shortened version of Cognitive Behavioural Responses Questionnaire (CBRQ)

    DOI: 10.1097/PSY.0000000000000536

    Ryan EG1, Vitoratou S, Goldsmith KA, Chalder T.

    PMID: 29023262

    Issn Print: 0033-3174

    Publication Date: 2017/10/10

    Abstract

    OBJECTIVE:

    Symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) can be perpetuated by cognitive and behavioural responses to the illness.

    We aimed to determine the factor structure, reliability and validity of the 40-item Cognitive Behavioural Responses Questionnaire (CBRQ) using data gathered from CFS patients.

    We also propose a short version CBRQ for greater clinical utility.

    METHODS:

    The psychometric analysis was performed on datasets drawn from two sources: a clinical service for CFS patients (N=576) and the PACE randomised controlled trial (RCT) of CFS treatments (N=640).

    An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted on the clinical dataset and a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed on the RCT dataset.

    Using these results, a short version of the CBRQ was proposed.

    Reliability, metric invariance across age and sex, and construct validity were assessed.

    RESULTS:

    The EFA (relative Chi-square 2.52; RMSEA 0.051; CFI 0.964; TLI 0.942) and CFA (relative Chi-square 4.029; RMSEA 0.069; CFI 0.901; TLI 0.892) revealed that eight factor models fitted the data well.

    Satisfactory Cronbach's alpha values were obtained for the final subscales (≥0.76).

    The shortened CBRQ was obtained by removing items that cross-loaded onto other factors and/or were the lowest loading items in each factor.

    The shortened CBRQ contained 18 items which had high factor loadings, good face-validity and reliability (Cronbach's alpha 0.67-0.88).

    CONCLUSIONS:

    The CBRQ, long and short versions, are reliable and valid scales for measuring cognitive and behavioural responses of patients with CFS.

    Further research is needed to examine the utility of the CBRQ in other long-term conditions.
     
    Last edited: Nov 10, 2017
    Valentijn, Woolie, Webdog and 4 others like this.
  2. Wonko

    Wonko Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Location:
    UK
    Fail at first sentence IMO.
     
  3. Dolphin

    Dolphin Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Cheshire and Luther Blissett like this.
  4. Dolphin

    Dolphin Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I'm not sure I will read this but I thought this was interesting:
    People will recall a score of 60+ was a recovery criterion in the PACE Trial in which Trudie Chalder was a principal investigator.
     
    EzzieD, Trish, Valentijn and 7 others like this.
  5. Esther12

    Esther12 Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    This is now on sci hub, but for some reason it didn't give me a direct link to post (never done that before).

    I gave up reading this half way through - it just looked like more pointless building on a foundation of sand. I did skim the rest and pull a couple of bits out in case they interest others.

    A bit surprising that this point was supported by two papers from 1991 and 1993:

    "Most studies have found that CFS patients do not have significant differences in
    physiological test results compared to controls (e.g., 4, 5). Shortly after its recognition as
    an illness (6, 7), clinical researchers postulated a cognitive behavioural model of CFS that
    hypothesised that CFS symptoms are perpetuated by the patients‟ cognitive and
    behavioural responses to the illness (8, 9). Some of the unhelpful cognitive responses in
    patients with CFS include excessive focusing on fatigue symptoms (10), and catastrophic
    interpretations of symptoms which involves worrying about worst-case potential
    consequences (11). These cognitive responses are also associated with behavioural
    responses in CFS patients, which include reducing or avoiding activities to alleviate
    fatigue (12, 13), or alternating between high levels of activity when feeling well and
    resting excessively in response to symptoms."​


    4. Wessely S. Chronic fatigue syndrome. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 1991; 54(8):
    669-671.
    5. Gibson H, Carroll N, Clague JE, Edwards RHT. Exercise Performance and
    Fatiguability in Patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Journal of Neurology
    Neurosurgery and Psychiatry 1993; 56(9): 993-998.​

    PACE is reference 14:

    "The therapies that have been shown to be effective in CFS, such as cognitive behavioural
    therapy (CBT) (14) are based on identifying and targeting unhelpful cognitive and
    behavioural patterns in CFS patients (9). It follows that accurate measurement of these
    factors is critical to the assessment of whether treatments are working as expected and to
    the refinement of treatments, so that they have the maximum possible effect on changing
    beliefs and behaviours that perpetuate CFS symptoms."
    It seems a bit odd that their getting to work on this supposedly 'critical' measurement only after 30 years of promoting their 'treatments' to patients.

    Here's some more from the bit where they compared their clinical sample to the PACE sample:

    "The duration of illness was generally longer in the
    clinical dataset compared to the RCT dataset (median 48 vs 31.5 months; P < 0.001). An
    inclusion criteria for the PACE study was that patients had a CFQ score ≥ 6; 473/576
    (82.1%) patients in the clinical dataset met this criteria. The mean CFQ score (bimodal)
    was 9.3 (SD=2.8) in the clinical dataset, and the mean in the RCT dataset was 10.3
    (SD=1.2) and a significant difference was found between these means (P < 0.001). PACE
    patients were also required to have an SF36 score ≤60, which was later increased to ≤65;
    348/576 (60.4%) patients had SF36 ≤60 in the clinical dataset and 377/576 (65.5%)
    patients had SF36 ≤65. The mean SF36 value in the clinical dataset was 46.9 (SD=26.4);
    the mean SF36 in the RCT dataset was 38 (SD=15.7) (P < 0.001). Due to trial entry
    criteria, the RCT patients had worse fatigue and disability than the clinical CFS patients"​

    Maybe this is of some interest, but I think that we'd already looked at those questions was just transaparently misguided as a way of assessing the 'catastrophising' cognitions of patients with a condition like CFS:

    "Although the catastrophising items have been used in previous papers (16, 17) and
    catastrophising was found to be one of the mediators of the effects of CBT and GET for
    CFS, we found these items to be problematic, with low factor loadings and evidence that
    they cross-loaded on to other factors. It may be that the items were not specific enough
    and/or overlapped with other constructs. In the proposed short version of the questionnaire
    we have removed these items since we wanted to obtain a questionnaire with as strong
    indicators as possible. The six factor model (with 18 items) explained 67% of variance in
    the data, whereas the eight factor model (with 40 items) explained 60% of the variance in
    the data. By removing problematic items, the latent structure became clearer.

    We also removed the avoidance items from the short version of the questionnaire as they
    cross-loaded on the fear avoidance factor or the catastrophising factor. It is likely that these
    items are not required in the presence of the fear avoidance items. The subscales/factors in
    the short version had good reliability and the items had large factor loadings and no cross
    loading."​
     
    Valentijn, Cheshire and Dolphin like this.
  6. Woolie

    Woolie Senior Member

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    This sort of cherry picking of the literature to fit a particular belief really makes me FURIOUS! I cannot believe this sort of thing is considered mainstream medicine. Imagine if you were trying to do a study of homeopathy, and you only cited the studies that supported your strong belief in its effectiveness? You'd never get past first base. Yet this stuff gets waved through without question!
    :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:!
     
    Esther12, Dolphin, Ryan31337 and 10 others like this.
  7. Hoopoe

    Hoopoe Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    5,234
    I find it amusing that they are misleading each other with false narratives of false illness beliefs.
     
    Viola, Skylark, Ryan31337 and 8 others like this.
  8. Amw66

    Amw66 Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    6,262
    I expect a huge variety of cherries will be picked as biomedical science progresses. This is the aspect that should be publicly " outed" preferably in peer reviewed pieces
     
    Trish, Valentijn and Woolie like this.

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