RNPilotClinical nursing research2024

Psychometric Assessment of Anxiety Measures in a Pilot Study of African American Patients with Obstructive Sleep Apnea.

La-Urshalar Brock, Katherine A Yeager, Andrew H Miller and 3 others

PMID 39340150

WHAT IT FOUND

In African American patients newly diagnosed with sleep apnea, both the short PROMIS Anxiety scale and the longer STAI-S showed strong reliability and valid results.

The brief six-item PROMIS form can accurately capture anxiety symptoms in this group.

Key findings

01Both the PROMIS Anxiety and STAI-S measures showed excellent internal consistency in this sample.

02The two anxiety measures were moderately correlated, supporting the concurrent validity of the brief PROMIS form.

03The short form PROMIS Anxiety scale can be used to accurately capture anxiety symptom severity among African Americans living with OSA.

STILL TO COME

How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs

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What it does not show

The study included only 32 participants, which limits the generalizability of the findings to the broader African American population with OSA. The data was cross-sectional, so it cannot show how anxiety scores change over time or in response to OSA treatment. The pilot was not powered to detect differences between groups, only to generate hypotheses about measure performance.

Declared interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest. The parent study was funded by the National Institute of Nursing Research.

The easy way to misread this

Do not interpret the high reliability scores as proof that anxiety causes OSA or that treating anxiety improves OSA outcomes. This study only validates the measurement tools; it does not test the effectiveness of any intervention.

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