Objective: The aim of this study was to develop a questionnaire for detecting Parkinson’s disease in its early stages and to evaluate its effectiveness.

Background: The apparent increase in the number of patients with PD, especially those of working age (according to the American Parkinson’s Disease Association (APDA) up to 20% of patients with PD are under 50 years old, half of them under 40 years old (http://www.apdaparkinson.org/parkinsonsdisease/information-on-parkinsons-symptoms/ 13.06.2016), has made this study relevant. The diagnosis of PD is usually clinical. And it is often difficult to diagnose the disease in its early stages.

Method: A total of 128 patients completed the questionnaire, 79 (62%) were female and 49 (38%) were male.  The questionnaire consists of items including the main symptoms of Parkinson’s disease (according to the new 2015 MDS diagnostic criteria), the main non-motor symptoms, and risk factors that may lead to the development of the disease (which were identified by searching the relevant literature review).   

Patients were interviewed in the inpatient neurology department and in the movement disorders department. A risk analysis calculating sensitivity, efficacy, specificity and AuROC values was used to evaluate the scale. Patients with and without  Parkinson’s Disease were also compared to identify questions that significantly differentiated the 2 groups. The questions had a binary response (Yes, No), so a Chi-square test was used for comparison. Overall questionnaire scores differed significantly between the 2 groups, with an average of 6.3 points higher in the PD group (10.0 vs 3.7, Mann-Whitney test p < 0.0001

Results: Based on the analyses performed, the questions included in the final version of the questionnaire were identified as being a good estimate for the prediction of Parkinson’s disease. The final version of the questionnaire consists of 18 items (AuRoc= 0.96, p<0.0001).

Conclusion: One of the aims of the study is to enable rapid diagnosis of new patients. The results suggest that the developed questionnaire can be used as a research tool to help diagnose PD and raise public awareness of the signs and risk factors of PD.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/questionnaire-for-the-detection-of-parkinsons-disease/