Reliability and Validity of the CORE-10 in a Stroke Population
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Reliability and Validity of the CORE-10 questionnaire in a stroke population
IRAS ID
278081
Contact name
Tom Steverson
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Norfolk Community Health and Care NHS Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Research Summary
As part of a patient’s routine care, stroke services are required to provide an assessment of mood within six weeks of a patient's stroke event using a validated mood assessment. However, many of the existing tools used to assess mood in stroke populations ask questions covering areas such as concentration and fatigue. Whilst these may be symptoms of mood difficulties, they may also be symptoms of stroke, potentially inflating scores on the mood questionnaires resulting is false positives. In contrast to other assessments, The Clinical Outcomes Routine Examination – Ten Item Version (CORE-10) is a measure of global distress that has fewer questions that overlap with stroke symptoms. The CORE-10 also has a number of advantages over other existing measures, including short administration time, being free to use and sampling questions around risk of self harm. The current study therefore aims to assess the validity and reliability of the CORE-10 within a stroke population.
The study will use a cross sectional, correlational design using a single sample of 41 participants who have experienced a stroke. Participants will be recruited from a stroke rehabilitation ward. Each participant will be asked to complete the CORE-10 as part of their routine care and asked if they wish to participate in the study. If the participant agrees, a further four mood assessments will be administered at a later time.
To assess reliability the internal consistency, split-half and test-retest reliability of the CORE-10 in a stroke population will be assessed. To assess test-retest reliability all participants will be invited to repeat the CORE-10 within one week of its original administration. To assess concurrent validity, correlations between the CORE-10 and the other four measures of distress will be explored.
Summary of Results
Thank you to all the participants who kindly gave their time to participate in the study titled The Reliability, Validity and Clinical Utility of the Clinical Outcomes Routine Evaluation Ten Item Version (CORE-10) in Post-Acute Stroke Patients.
The study was carried out by staff in the Stroke Clinical Psychology Team at Norfolk Community Heath and Care NHS Trust. The study took place on Beech Ward Stroke Rehabilitation unit at Norwich Community Hospital between February 2021 and March 2023.
The research was needed because stroke services are required to screen all patients for mood difficulties within the first six weeks of stroke. Whilst various assessments are available to do this, discussions with staff and patients suggested that the Clinical Outcomes Routine Evaluation Ten Item Version (CORE-10) was a preferable tool for this. However, we don’t yet know if the CORE-10 is very good at accurately measuring mood difficulties after stroke (validity) and is able to do this with consistency (reliability). The research therefore set out to assess how accurate and consistent the CORE-10 is when measuring mood difficulties in stroke patients.
Fifty-three participants completed the CORE-10 and four other measures of mood difficulties which have been shown to useful for detecting mood difficulties after stroke. Fifty participants then completed the CORE-10 again the following day.
Results showed good agreement between CORE-10’s ability to detect mood difficulties and the other mood measures (accuracy). Results also showed that the CORE-10 scores were generally the same when participants completed the questionnaire the following day (consistency).
This study has helped patients and researchers by providing evidence that the CORE-10 appears to be an accurate and consistent (or valid and reliable) measure that has clinical utility for screening distress in stroke inpatients.
We hope for the study to be to published in a peer reviewed academic journal in the coming months.REC name
HSC REC B
REC reference
20/NI/0175
Date of REC Opinion
18 Jan 2021
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion