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Observational Study
. 2021 Jan;133(1-2):41-51.
doi: 10.1007/s00508-020-01641-w. Epub 2020 Apr 3.

Psychometric properties of the Activities Scale for Kids-performance after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in adolescents and children : Results of a prospective study on behalf of the German-Austrian-Swiss GVHD Consortium

Anita Lawitschka  1 , Matthias Brunmair  2 , Dorothea Bauer  3 , Natalia Zubarovskaya  3 , Rosemarie Felder-Puig  4 , Brigitte Strahm  5 , Peter Bader  6 , Gabriele Strauss  7 , Michael Albert  8 , Irene von Luettichau  9 , Hildegard Greinix  10 , Daniel Wolff  11 , Christina Peters  3
Affiliations
Observational Study

Psychometric properties of the Activities Scale for Kids-performance after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in adolescents and children : Results of a prospective study on behalf of the German-Austrian-Swiss GVHD Consortium

Anita Lawitschka et al. Wien Klin Wochenschr. 2021 Jan.

Erratum in

Abstract

Background: The psychometric properties of an instrument, the Activity Scale for Kids-performance (ASKp), were assessed which was proposed to capture physical functioning after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). Additionally, this multicenter observational prospective study investigated the influence of clinical correlates focusing on chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGVHD).

Methods: Patient-reported ASKp, clinician-reported Karnofsky/Lansky status (KPS/PSS), patient characteristics and cGVHD details were assessed of 55 patients with a median age of 12 years at baseline after day +100 post-HSCT and every 3 months during the next 18 months. The psychometric properties were evaluated and ASKp and KPS/PSS status was compared using ANOVAS and multiple regression models.

Results: The German version of the ASKp showed good psychometric properties except for ceiling effects. Discrimination ability of the ASKp was good regarding the need for devices but failed to predict cGVHD patients. Both the ASKp and the KPS/PSS were associated with patients after adoptive cell therapy being in need for devices, suffering from overlap cGVHD and from steroid side effects but not with patients' age and gender. In contrast to the KPS/PSS the ASKp only showed significant differences after merging moderate and severe cGHVD patients when comparing them to No-cGVHD (F = 4.050; p = 0.049), being outperformed by the KPS/PSS (F = 20.082; p < 0.001).

Conclusion: The ASKp showed no clear advantages compared to KPS/PSS even though economical and patients' effort was higher. Further application range may be limited through ceiling effects. Both should be taken into consideration. Therefore, the results may not support the usage of ASKp after HSCT and rather suggest KPS/PSS, both patient and clinician reported.

Keywords: AYAs; Cancer patients; GVHD; Physical functioning.

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Conflict of interest statement

A. Lawitschka, M. Brunmair, D. Bauer, N. Zubarovskaya, R. Felder-Puig, B. Strahm, P. Bader, G. Strauss, M. Albert, I.von Luettichau, H. Greinix, D. Wolff, and C. Peters declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
ASK©-Performance SCORE SHEET. The ASKp domains, items and response options
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve when using ASKp scores to predict patients that need devices and patients with cGVHD. a Need of devices: ROC curve when using ASKp scores to predict patients thatneed devices; b cGVHD: ROC curve when using ASKp scores to predict patients with cGVHD
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Standardized means of ASKp and KPS/PSS across time points. ASKp = MASK = solid line, MASK without outlier in T9 = dashed line, KPS/PSS = MKPS/PSS = dotted line
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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