Development of a Research Tool to Document Self-Reported Chronic Conditions in Primary Care. Issue 1 (2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Fortin, Martin; Almirall, José; Nicholson, Kathryn
• Is Part Of: Journal of comorbidity. Volume 7 Issue 1(2017)
• Page Start: 117
• Page End: 123
• Publication Date: 2017
• Subjects: self-report -- chronic conditions -- primary care -- multimorbidity; Chronic diseases -- Periodicals; Comorbidity -- Periodicals; Chronic diseases -- Epidemiology -- Periodicals; Comorbidity; Chronic Disease; Electronic journals; Periodicals; Fulltext; Internet Resources; Periodicals; Periodical; 616.044
• DOI: 10.15256/joc.2017.7.122
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2235-042X

Abstract

Background: Researchers interested in multimorbidity often find themselves in the dilemma of identifying or creating an operational definition in order to generate data. Our team was invited to propose a tool for documenting the presence of chronic conditions in participants recruited for different research studies. Objective: To describe the development of such a tool. Design: A scoping review in which we identified relevant studies, selected studies, charted the data, and collated and summarized the results. The criteria considered for selecting chronic conditions were: (1) their relevance to primary care services; (2) the impact on affected patients; (3) their prevalence among the primary care users; and (4) how often the conditions were present among the lists retrieved from the scoping review. Results: Taking into account the predefined criteria, we developed a list of 20 chronic conditions/categories of conditions that could be self-reported. A questionnaire was built using simple instructions and a table including the list of chronic conditions/categories of conditions. Conclusions: We developed a questionnaire to document 20 self-reported chronic conditions/categories of conditions intended to be used for research purposes in primary care. Guided by previous literature, the purpose of this questionnaire is to evaluate the self-reported burden of multimorbidity by participants and to encourage comparability among research studies using the same measurement.