Endocrine Abstracts

Objective: Thyroid diseases have been shown to affect quality of life. A thyroid-specific patient-reported outcome (PRO) measuring quality of life, the ThyPRO, has recently been developed and validated using classical clinic- and psycho-metric methods. The purpose of the present study was to apply modern psychometrics to validate the measure as the extent of differential item functioning (DIF) according to sex, age, education and diagnosis, within the ThyPRO.<p class="abst...

Objective: During the development of a thyroid-specific quality of life (QoL) questionnaire, patients and clinicians rated the relative relevance of a list of possibly relevant QoL issues. In this study we compare the patient and clinician ratings.Methods: Fifteen thyroid experts and 80 thyroid outpatients (14 with non-toxic goitre, 12 nodular toxic goitre, 21 Graves’ disease, 17 thyroid associated ophthalmopathy (TAO) and 16 primary hypothyroidism)...

Introduction: Some methodologists have raised concern about the validity of the standard method of assessing patient-reported outcomes, i.e. retrospective questionnaires. Repeated momentary measurements have been introduced to avoid recall bias and provide ecological validity. Although having theoretical advantages, the measurement properties remain unsubstantiated. This study examines the relationship between the retrospective thyroid-related quality of life patient-reported ...

Objective: Glucocorticoid-induced adrenal insufficiency is highly prevalent, but the clinical consequences are not fully understood. Therefore, the indication of adding stress dosages of glucocorticoid during ongoing anti-inflammatory glucocorticoid treatment remains unclear. The aim of this study was to determine the impact of adrenal function on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in patients receiving ongoing low-dose prednisolone treatment.Methods...

Context: Glucocorticoid-induced adrenal insufficiency is the most frequent type of adrenal insufficiency, but its symptomatology has not been thoroughly studied.Objective: To describe the predominant symptoms experienced by patients with glucocorticoid-induced adrenal insufficiency and rate these symptoms’ significance for patients’ perceived need for supplemental hydrocortisone stress dose.Methods: The 80 symptoms in the...

Introduction: The thyroid-related quality-of-life patient-reported outcome ThyPRO questionnaire is the most widely used tool for measuring health-related quality of life (QoL) in patients with benign thyroid diseases. The aim of this study was to adapt and validate a Spanish version of the ThyPRO.Methods: The ThyPRO consists of 85 items, grouped in 13 scales and one single QoL item. Scales cover physical and mental symptoms, well-being and function, soci...

Background: Long-term, low-dose prednisolone treatment (≤5mg/day) is associated with adrenal insufficiency in >33% of patients. Nevertheless, the clinical consequences of glucocorticoid-induced adrenal insufficiency in patients receiving ongoing low-dose glucocorticoid treatment are unknown. Current clinical guidelines do not recommend routine evaluation of adrenal function during low-dose glucocorticoid treatment, and patients are not routinely instructed to increase gl...