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The Gastrointestinal Dysfunction Scale for Parkinson's Disease
Availability
Please visit this website for more information about the instrument: The Gastrointestinal Dysfunction Scale for Parkinson's Disease
Classification
Supplemental: Parkinson's Disease (PD)
Short Description of Instrument
The Gastrointestinal Dysfunction Scale for Parkinson?s Disease is a patient-reported, questionnaire-based assessment of GI symptoms. It includes questions about stool frequency (both increased and decreased), straining during defecation, stool consistency, incomplete evacuation, abdominal pain, bloating, weight loss, dysphagia, drooling, heartburn, and nausea. Questions query about the previous 6 months.
Comments/Special Instructions
The scale collects additional information that is not scored, including the need for specific measures such as laxatives to increase stool frequency, lifestyle factors that influence GI symptoms such as diet and activity levels, and medical co-morbidities that can also impact GI symptoms.
Scoring and Psychometric Properties
Scoring: The GIDS-PD consists of a 12-item questionnaire with 3 subscores: Constipation, Bowel Irritability and Upper GI. There are Yes/No questions, followed by frequency and severity in every subscore (1-3 points each). Frequency and severity score for each item are multiplied together and the products for all 12 items are summed. Total maximum score of 108.
 
Psychometric Properties: Large sample validation study reported overall Cronbach's alpha of 0.82; reliability not improved by deletion of any particular item; constipation subscale performed very well, other 2 subscales did not.
Rationale/Justification
Strengths: Easy to administer (~10 minutes), covers the most common GI symptoms in PD, and queries subjects re: frequency and severity of each symptom during the previous 6 months. It also includes questions about lifestyle factors and GI co-morbidities that can influence GI symptoms.
 
Weaknesses: The 3 subscale divisions do not make sense physiologically, and 2/3 subscales performed very modestly on psychometric tests. It covers the previous 6 months so recall bias is a potential concern and it is not appropriate for frequent re-assessments given that it covers such a long duration of time (the previous 6 months)-this limits its utility in many shorter duration clinical trials.
References
Key Reference:
Camacho M, Greenland JC, Williams-Gray CH. The Gastrointestinal Dysfunction Scale for Parkinson's Disease. Mov Disord. 2021 Oct;36(10):2358-2366.
 
Document last updated August 2022