The Idiopathic Environmental Intolerance Symptom Inventory

J Occup Environ Med. 2009 Jun 17. [Epub ahead of print]

The Idiopathic Environmental Intolerance Symptom Inventory: Development, Evaluation, and Application.

Andersson MJ, Andersson L, Bende M, Millqvist E, Nordin S. From the Department of Psychology (Ms Andersson, Mr Andersson, Dr Nordin), Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden; the Department of Otorhinolaryngology (Dr Bende), Central Hospital, Skövde, Sweden; Asthma and Allergy Research Group (Dr Millqvist), Sahlgrenska University Hospital Gothenburg, Sweden; and Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (Dr Nordin), Orebro University Hospital, Orebro, Sweden.

OBJECTIVE: To develop, evaluate, and apply a questionnaire-based instrument for investigation of specific symptoms in idiopathic environmental intolerance (IEI), called the Idiopathic Environmental Intolerance Symptom Inventory (IEISI).

METHODS: Participants with IEI to chemicals responded to 82 candidate symptoms and to three subscales of the Quick Environmental Exposure and Sensitivity Inventory (QEESI) at a test (n = 207) and retest (n = 193) occasion.

RESULTS: The 27 most commonly reported symptoms were selected and grouped into five symptom categories. Internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and concurrent validity were found to be satisfying. Cluster analysis identified two subgroups of IEI to chemicals.

CONCLUSIONS: The results provide support for the IEISI being a reliable, valid, and fast tool for the study of specific symptom prevalence in IEI and encourage further study of subgroups.

PMID: 19542897 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]