Psychometric Properties of the MDADI-A Preliminary Study of Whether Less is Truly More?
Daniel J Lin, Jenan Altamimi, Kim Pearce and 2 others
PMID 33709289WHAT IT FOUND
Five questions about social eating and self-esteem captured the same information as the full 20-item MDADI in head and neck cancer patients.
Do not swap to this shorter version in clinic yet, as the authors advise against it until further validation is complete.
Key findings
01A five-item version of the MDADI, focusing on social exclusion, irritation from others, low self-esteem, limited social life, and questions about eating, had acceptable internal consistency.
02The authors explicitly advise against using this abbreviated version in clinical practice until further validation studies are finished.
03The analysis was exploratory, meaning it identified a potential structure in the data but did not prove the new short version works as well as the original.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
This was an exploratory analysis, which means it generated a hypothesis about the questionnaire structure but did not confirm it. The data came from only two centres in northeast England, so it may not apply to other populations. The study did not test the new five-item version on a separate group of patients to see if it works as well as the original. Missing data were not fully analysed for bias because patient records were anonymised before this study began.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The study used data from existing service evaluation and research databases at two university teaching hospitals.
The easy way to misread this
Do not start using a five-question version of the MDADI in your clinic based on this paper. The authors explicitly advise against clinical use until further validation is complete, and this study only explored the data retrospectively without testing the new version on new patients.