A brief assessment of psychosocial functioning of subjects with bipolar I disorder: the LIFE-RIFT. Longitudinal Interval Follow-up Evaluation-Range Impaired Functioning Tool.

Those afflicted with bipolar disorder often suffer from substantial functional impairment both when in episode and when in remission. This study examined the psychometric properties of a brief assessment of psychosocial functioning, the Range of Impaired Functioning Tool (LIFE-RIFT), among subjects with bipolar I disorder. The study sample consisted of 163 subjects who presented with bipolar I disorder at intake into the NIMH Collaborative Depression Study (CDS). All LIFE-RIFT items come from the Longitudinal Interval Follow-up Evaluation (LIFE). Follow-up data that were used to examine the reliability and validity of the scale come from assessments of psychosocial functioning that were conducted 6, 12, 18, and 24 months after intake into the CDS. The results of factor analyses indicate that the scale items are measures of one construct, psychosocial functioning. The interrater agreement on the scale score was very good with an intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.94. The internal consistency reliability among the scale items was uniformly satisfactory over the four assessment periods, with coefficient alpha ranging from 0.78 to 0.84. Mixed-effect regression analyses showed that during mood episodes subjects were significantly more impaired than those in recovery. In conclusion, the psychometric properties of the LIFE-RIFT were examined in subjects with bipolar I disorder. The analyses from this longitudinal, observational study provide empirical support for the reliability and validity of the scale. The LIFE-RIFT provides a brief, inexpensive alternative to scales currently used to assess psychosocial functioning and can be easily added to semistructured assessments that are used in clinical and treatment outcome studies.

[1]  J. Endicott,et al.  The Range of Impaired Functioning Tool (LIFE–RIFT): a brief measure of functional impairment , 1999, Psychological Medicine.

[2]  J. Markowitz,et al.  The treatment of chronic depression, part 3: psychosocial functioning before and after treatment with sertraline or imipramine. , 1998, The Journal of clinical psychiatry.

[3]  S. Strakowski,et al.  12-month outcome of patients with bipolar disorder following hospitalization for a manic or mixed episode. , 1998, The American journal of psychiatry.

[4]  Andrew C. Leon,et al.  Assessing Psychiatric Impairment in Primary Care with the Sheehan Disability Scale , 1997, International journal of psychiatry in medicine.

[5]  F B Hu,et al.  Intraclass correlation estimates in a school-based smoking prevention study. Outcome and mediating variables, by sex and ethnicity. , 1996, American journal of epidemiology.

[6]  D. Hedeker,et al.  MIXREG: a computer program for mixed-effects regression analysis with autocorrelated errors. , 1996, Computer methods and programs in biomedicine.

[7]  D. Hedeker,et al.  MIXOR: a computer program for mixed-effects ordinal regression analysis. , 1996, Computer methods and programs in biomedicine.

[8]  C. Hammen,et al.  Relapse and impairment in bipolar disorder. , 1995, The American journal of psychiatry.

[9]  A. Leon,et al.  More reliable outcome measures can reduce sample size requirements. , 1995, Archives of general psychiatry.

[10]  L. Grossman,et al.  Course and outcome in bipolar affective disorder: a longitudinal follow-up study. , 1995, The American journal of psychiatry.

[11]  D. Hedeker,et al.  A random-effects ordinal regression model for multilevel analysis. , 1994, Biometrics.

[12]  S D Imber,et al.  Some conceptual and statistical issues in analysis of longitudinal psychiatric data. Application to the NIMH treatment of Depression Collaborative Research Program dataset. , 1993, Archives of general psychiatry.

[13]  G. Klerman,et al.  The enduring psychosocial consequences of mania and depression. , 1993, The American journal of psychiatry.

[14]  J. Mintz,et al.  Treatments of depression and the functional capacity to work. , 1992, Archives of general psychiatry.

[15]  C. Sherbourne,et al.  The MOS 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36) , 1992 .

[16]  J. Mendlewicz,et al.  Social Adjustment of Remitted Bipolar and Unipolar Out-patients , 1991, British Journal of Psychiatry.

[17]  C. Waternaux,et al.  Outcome in Mania. A 4-year prospective follow-up of 75 patients utilizing survival analysis. , 1990, Archives of general psychiatry.

[18]  A. Stewart,et al.  The functioning and well-being of depressed patients. Results from the Medical Outcomes Study. , 1989, JAMA.

[19]  N. Andreasen,et al.  The Longitudinal Interval Follow-up Evaluation. A comprehensive method for assessing outcome in prospective longitudinal studies. , 1987, Archives of general psychiatry.

[20]  J. S. Tanaka,et al.  Confirmatory hierarchical factor analyses of psychological distress measures. , 1984 .

[21]  J. Endicott,et al.  A diagnostic interview: the schedule for affective disorders and schizophrenia. , 1978, Archives of general psychiatry.

[22]  E. Robins,et al.  Research diagnostic criteria: rationale and reliability. , 1978, Archives of general psychiatry.

[23]  M. Weissman,et al.  SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT BY SELF‐REPORT IN A COMMUNITY SAMPLE AND IN PSYCHIATRIC OUTPATIENTS , 1978, The Journal of nervous and mental disease.

[24]  M. Weissman,et al.  Assessment of social adjustment by patient self-report. , 1976, Archives of general psychiatry.

[25]  J. Fleiss,et al.  The global assessment scale. A procedure for measuring overall severity of psychiatric disturbance. , 1976, Archives of general psychiatry.

[26]  L. Cronbach.  Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests , 1951 .

[27]  J. Endicott,et al.  Endicott Work Productivity Scale (EWPS): a new measure to assess treatment effects. , 1997, Psychopharmacology bulletin.

[28]  Klerman Gl,et al.  Introduction: overview of the clinical studies program. , 1979 .