Year: 2024
Type: conference-abstract
Abstract: Background The Problem Behaviors Assessment – Short Form (PBA-s) is a widely used measure of behavioral symptoms in HD research given its comprehensiveness and development for use with people with Huntington’s disease (pwHD). Aims We examined the factor structure, reliability, and distributional properties of the PBA-s in a large sample of pwHD within the context of the Huntington’s Disease Integrated Staging System (HD-ISS) framework. Methods Baseline PBA-s item total scores (frequency × severity) were analyzed from 14,111 participants in Enroll-HD. Participants were categorized as Stage 0/1 (n = 3,249; 23%), Stage 2 (n = 1,709; 12%), or Stage 3 (n = 9,153; 65%), following HD-ISS criteria. Results Rates of missing responses were low overall. Item total score distributions were significantly positively skewed in Stages 0/1 and 2. Skewness was also observed in Stage 3, but to a lesser extent. Internal consistency (α) of the PBA-s was moderate across groups (.73-.76), despite five items with weak corrected item-to-total correlations. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) results differed by HD-ISS stage; in Stages 0/1 and 2, a three-factor model representing internalizing problems, externalizing problems, and cognitive control problems was identified and in Stage 3, a five-factor solution consisting of internalizing problems, suicidality, externalizing problems, cognitive dysfunction, and cognitive control problems was indicated. Conclusions Reliability of the PBA-s was adequate, however, we observed high rates of non-endorsement (i.e., item total scores = 0) and a variable factor structure with disease progression, suggesting the PBA-s may have limited utility for assessing behavioral symptoms across all disease stages.
Institutions: University of Iowa, Rush University Medical Center
Language: English
Subfield: Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W4402374400