Search Results (2)

Background: Fatigue is one of the most common symptoms in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), and has a major impact on their quality of life. Measurement tools that assess the patient’s condition are commonly used in the neurological field, though diagnostic tools are currently unable to distinguish potential alternative causes of fatigue in individual patients. The Revised Piper Fatigue Scale (PFS-R) is a self-administered assessment scale that is internationally used for fatigue measurement. Aim: This study aimed to evaluate the reliability and validity of the Italian version of the PFS-R in patients with MS. Methods: Forty-one individuals were included in this study. Each participant in the study was given a dossier, in paper format, containing the informed consent form, a personal data sheet, the Fatigue Symptoms and Impacts Questionnaire in Relapsing Multiple Sclerosis (FSIQ-RMS), the Fatigue Severity Scale (FSS), and the PFS-R. Results: The PFS-R was found to have strong internal consistency, with a value of α equal to 0.977. Correlations between PFS-R, FSS, and FSIQ-RMS scores were analyzed using the Pearson correlation coefficient, and all scales showed statistically significant correlations. Conclusion: The PFS-R is a new self-administered tool to assess fatigue in patients with MS. It evaluates fatigue characteristics, difficulty in carrying out daily life activities, and how the individual feels as a result of this symptom. This tool was previously validated for use in cancer patients, which also allows us to make a comparison between different pathologies and rehabilitation treatments. Full article

In contrast to traditional researches that involve a manual, non-quantitative, and subjective way of performing handwriting analysis, in the current research, a special computer-aided method of revised handwriting analysis is used. It includes the detection of personality traits via manual quantitative registration of handwriting signs and their automated quantitative evaluation. This method is based on a mathematical–statistical model that integrates multiple international publications on the evaluation of handwriting signs. The first aim is the validation of the revised method against the 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire Revised (16PF-R), which is performed as a self-report personality test by test persons and was developed and researched empirically by Raymond B. Cattell et al. A second aim is the development of an integrated model for assessment including handwriting analysis: when both methods come to the same result on a certain scale, then the construct can be accepted with higher reliability; in contrast, when results are contradictory, they should be regarded as a limitation of each method and raise awareness in the researchers, as these contradictions are a precious source of additional information regarding the complexity, ambiguity, and context specificity of personality traits. Full article