RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Further development and validation of the Multimorbidity Treatment Burden Questionnaire (MTBQ)
JF BMJ Open
JO BMJ Open
FD British Medical Journal Publishing Group
SP e080096
DO 10.1136/bmjopen-2023-080096
VO 14
IS 4
A1 Duncan, Polly
A1 Scott, Lauren J
A1 Dawson, Shoba
A1 Munas, Muzrif
A1 Pyne, Yvette
A1 Chaplin, Katherine
A1 Gaunt, Daisy
A1 Guenette, Line
A1 Salisbury, Chris
YR 2024
UL http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/14/4/e080096.abstract
AB Objectives To undertake further psychometric testing of the Multimorbidity Treatment Burden Questionnaire (MTBQ) and examine whether reversing the scale reduced floor effects.Design Survey.Setting UK primary care.Participants Adults (≥18 years) with three or more long-term conditions randomly selected from four general practices and invited by post.Measures Baseline survey: sociodemographics, MTBQ (original or version with scale reversed), Treatment Burden Questionnaire (TBQ), four questions (from QQ-10) on ease of completing the questionnaires. Follow-up survey (1–4 weeks after baseline): MTBQ, TBQ and QQ-10. Anonymous data collected from electronic GP records: consultations (preceding 12 months) and long-term conditions. The proportion of missing data and distribution of responses were examined for the original and reversed versions of the MTBQ and the TBQ. Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and Spearman’s rank correlation (Rs) assessed test–retest reliability and construct validity, respectively. Ease of completing the MTBQ and TBQ was compared. Interpretability was assessed by grouping global MTBQ scores into 0 and tertiles (>0).Results 244 adults completed the baseline survey (consent rate 31%, mean age 70 years) and 225 completed the follow-up survey. Reversing the scale did not reduce floor effects or data skewness. The global MTBQ scores had good test–retest reliability (ICC for agreement at baseline and follow-up 0.765, 95% CI 0.702 to 0.816). Global MTBQ score was correlated with global TBQ score (Rs 0.77, p<0.001), weakly correlated with number of consultations (Rs 0.17, p=0.010), and number of different general practitioners consulted (Rs 0.23, p<0.001), but not correlated with number of long-term conditions (Rs −0.063, p=0.330). Most participants agreed that both the MTBQ and TBQ were easy to complete and included aspects they were concerned about.Conclusion This study demonstrates test–retest reliability and ease of completion of the MTBQ and builds on a previous study demonstrating good content validity, construct validity and internal consistency reliability of the questionnaire.No data are available. The participants of this study did not give written consent for their individual anonymised data to be shared publicly, so the research supporting data are not available.