Evaluation of the French Version of EUROQUEST: A Questionnaire for Neurotoxic Symptoms
Section snippets
INTRODUCTION
Long-term occupational exposure to heavy metals, solvents or pesticides may cause neuropsychiatric symptoms characterised by affective changes in personality, deterioration in cognitive abilities (Baker, 1994) and impairment in sensory or neuro-vegetative domains. Exposure to these agents frequently occurs in various industries and is a potential hazard to millions of workers around the world (Van Vliet et al., 1989). Several epidemiological studies have demonstrated significant associations
Study Population
Data from four cross-sectional studies were selected: (1) 113 printing plant workers (64 exposed to toluene and 49 non-exposed); (2) 97 male painters exposed to mixed solvents and 96 non-exposed ones; (3) 43 women and 19 men from a medical operating staff exposed to anaesthetic gas, and 43 women and 19 men unexposed to anaesthetic gas; (4) 410 non-exposed workers (201 women and 209 men) enrolled in a health check-up centre; this population will be named “Reference population”. EUROQUEST was
Descriptive Results
The mean scores of each original EUROQUEST domain for Reference women, exposed and non-exposed men are presented in Table 1.
Internal Consistency
Table 2 gives the results from Cronbach’s αs computed on Reference population. In general the questionnaire showed a good internal consistency of the domains: all αs were above 0.6 with the exception of the “sleep disorders”, and most of them were above 0.75.
Sensitivity to Change
The sensitivity to age, educational level (assessed with vocabulary test) of original EUROQUEST scores was evaluated
DISCUSSION
Our descriptive results indicate that the prevalences of symptoms were quite homogenous between the different non-exposed populations, and as expected greater for the exposed groups.
The computation of Cronbach’s α on each score of the original structure showed a good internal consistency: the αs ranged between 0.58 and 0.85, and 8 of 11 were above 7 (Nunnally, 1978). The weakest α is observed for “Sleep disorders” domain: two of the five items related to this domain are not very specific of
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Parkinson's disease and solvents: Is there a causal link?
2016, Revue NeurologiqueCitation Excerpt :Organic solvent exposure was assessed using an occupational exposure matrix and job register (Patients A and B) or by toxicological interview (Patient C). The EUROQUEST solvent questionnaire [14,15] was also administered to Patients A and B. All three patients were professional car painters (Table 1).
Solvent neurotoxicity in vehicle collision repair workers in New Zealand
2016, NeuroToxicologyCitation Excerpt :Finally, neurotoxicity was assessed using self-reported symptoms, which were not confirmed by a clinical assessment, and therefore some misclassification may have occurred. However, EUROQUEST was designed specifically to assess symptoms associated with occupational exposure to neurotoxic agents (Karlson et al., 2000), and is widely used and well validated against clinical criteria (Carter et al., 2002; Kaukiainen et al., 2009a, 2009b; Williamson, 2007; Rouch et al., 2003). In addition, as suggested recently (van Valen et al., 2012), standardised symptom assessment represents an important starting point for identifying populations “at risk” of effects associated with solvent exposure.
Neurotoxicity of solvents
2015, Handbook of Clinical NeurologyCitation Excerpt :Neurotoxic questionnaires share very similar features and have been shown to detect CSE: Euroquest (EQ) (Chouanière et al., 1997), Questionnaire 16 or 18 (Q16 or Q18) (Lundberg et al., 1997; Nasterlack et al., 1999; Ihrig et al., 2001; Nordling Nilson et al., 2007), Psychological–Neurological Questionnaire PNF (Kiesswetter et al., 1997) and the Neurotoxicity Symptom Checklist (NSC-60) (Hooisma et al., 1994; Viaene et al., 2001). EQ has been well validated and shown to be cost-effective and efficient to screen and evaluate CSE (Chouanière et al., 1997; Karlson et al., 2000; Deschamps et al., 2001; Carter et al., 2002; Rouch et al., 2003; Kaukiainen et al., 2004a, 2009a, b; Furu et al., 2012, 2014). The core EQ, with 59 questions, is directed to chronic effects of neurotoxicity.
Occurrence of cognitive and neurological symptoms in norwegian dentists
2011, Safety and Health at WorkCitation Excerpt :This is probably because the controls used in the previous study constituted a representative sample of the general population while only subjects with a university degree were used as controls for the dentists. As for the French study that reported Euroquest symptoms in a comparable way [23], female controls from the general population had Euroquest scores that were fairly in line with the scores in our female dentists and controls, but here, the possibility of cultural differences should also be taken into account. The aim of this study was to elucidate whether Norwegian dentists with previous occupational exposure to metallic mercury have an increased prevalence of symptoms consistent with cognitive malfunction.