Functional Severity Index

Name of Questionnaire

Functional Severity Index

Description

The Functional Severity Index is a measure of functional impairment, i.e., symptoms and restrictions due to asthma in school-aged children. Recall period is 12 months.

Developer

MJ Rosier, J Bishop, T Nolan, CF Robertson, JB Carlin, PD Phelan

Address

Terry Nolan
Head, Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics Unit
Royal Children's Hospital
Parkville, Victoria 3052 Australia
phone: +61 3 9345 6363

E-mail

t.nolan@unimelb.edu.au

URL

 Not reported.

Cost & availability

Contact T Nolan for permission and information.

Administration

Interview. Parent serves as respondent.

Time to complete

Not reported

Number of items

6

Domains & categories

Total score only. The questions reflect frequency and intensity of episodes, frequency of symptoms between episodes, and intensity of impairment between episodes.

Name of categories/domains

Total score only

Scaling of items

Five of the questions are 5-point Likert scales; one question is yes/no.

Scoring

Item response theory or raw scores. For raw score calculation, each item is scored from 0 to 4, with 0 indicating mild or no symptoms/impairments and 4 indicating the most severe (yes/no is scored 4/0). The total score is the sum of scores across questions, range 0 to 24.

Reliability

Validity

Construct validity demonstrated through significant correlations with days of school absence due to wheeze, the FSII-R , and the number of visits to medical care for wheeze in the past year. Concurrent validity demonstrated by significant but weak correlations with clinical assessments of severity, including percent predicted FEF, percent predicted FEV1, FEV1/FVC, and amount of medication used for wheeze ¹ .

Responsiveness

Not reported

Minimally important difference

Not determined

Research use

Not reported

Clinical use

Not reported

Language

Original: English (Australia)

References

1. Rosier MJ, Bishop J, Nolan T, Robertson CF, Carlin JB, Phelan PD. Measurement of functional severity of asthma in children. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 1994;149:1434-41.

Date of information

March 1999

Comments from developer

Yes, March 1999