Development and Validation of Quality of Life Scale in Parkinson’s Disease

Parkinson disease (PD) is a most common neurological degenerative, progressive disorder. It is specified by the degeneration of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra and the subsequent depletion of striating dopaminergic pathway.It is indicated by combination of 4 cardinal features of bradykinesia, rigidity, tremor, and postural instability.

Quality of Life (QoL) is a multidimensional construct, which consists of at least three broad domains: physical, mental and social. These are suitable measures as an outcome measure of a new treatment or rehabilitation.Researchers have concluded that the quality of life is affected in patients with Parkinson’s disease.

Thereare some scales which are used worldwide to assess health related quality of life in PD. Most commonly used is PDQ 39 scale. Also, PIMS, SF-36, 15D are the scales used to evaluate QoL in PD. But there are some lacunas seen when we consider Indian population in terms of cultural differences, genetics, environmental variations, etc.  The challenges like Autonomic symptoms, Vocal modulations, Dual tasking, Bradyphrenia, Micrographia are the missing components in most of the available scales. There is lacking literature available on the QOL scales that are developed for only Indian population. The QOL was also found to be influenced by disease stage, severity, duration, and financial security. This research aims to develop a scale on QOL in Parkinson’s disease for  Indian  population by using DELPHI approach.