The everyday functioning questionnaire: A new measure of cognitive and emotional status for neurosurgical outpatients

A group of 40 neurosurgical patients and their partners reported on the patients' everyday cognitive and emotional problems following brain surgery using the everyday functioning questionnaire (EFQ). These results were compared with a control group of 23 patients who had undergone surgery to extra-cerebral areas. Factor analysis found a sound construct validity in which all the subscales Memory, Emotion, Concentration and Communication were well defined and a new subscale referring to "Lack of Insight" emerged. The subscales had satisfactory inter-item consistencies (Cronbach alpha > .85). A separate analysis of the questionnaires revealed that the partners' questionnaire gave a better separation [Wilks' 1=.62, df = 6, P = .001] with 81% of subjects classified compared to the patients" questionnaire [Wilks' 1=.8, df = 6, P = .058] with only 72% correctly classified. With the exception of the Communication subscale, all the individual subscales showed a significant discrimination between the two groups on the partners' version of the EFQ questionnaire. A subgroup comparison of aneurysm patients (n = 9) showed generally less impairment compared to tumour patients (n = 26), with a significant separation on the subscales of Emotion, Insight, and Concentration. The relationship between the EFQ and the neuropsychological test results on a subsample of patients (n = 10) found the partners' judgements on the EFQ to have greater concurrent validity when compared to the patients' self-report. The rehabilitation and assessment applications of the EFQ are discussed.