Article

OBJECTIVE: To develop a latent structural model of health outcomes in people with
spinal cord injury (SCI) that accounts for the measurement of underlying factors
and their association with demographic and injury-related exogenous variables.
DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. SETTING: Specialty hospital and medical university. PARTICIPANTS: Participants with traumatic SCI (N=1871) of at least
1-year duration. INTERVENTIONS: Not applicable. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES:
Exploratory factor analysis was used to identify latent health outcome
structures. Several key exogenous variables were also linked with the latent
health outcome factors. RESULTS: Six latent health outcome factors were
identified by the exploratory factor analysis with excellent model fit (root mean
square error of approximation=.040). These latent factors included (1) global
health problems; (2) chronic disease; (3) acute treatments; (4) symptoms of SCI
complications, (5) pressure ulcers; and (6) subsequent injuries. Sex,
race/ethnicity, age, years since injury, and injury severity were all
significantly associated with at least 1 latent health outcome factor, which
indicates that these latent health outcomes varied as a function of the exogenous
variables. CONCLUSIONS: This study improved our understanding of the structure of
health outcomes, and utilization of latent health outcome factors provides more
stable and comprehensive composite scores than does utilization of a single
observed health outcome indicator.
CI - Copyright (c) 2017 American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine. Published by
Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Langue : ANGLAIS