AAN 2011
Restless legs: evaluation of sensitivity, specificity of a self-administered survey

 Parisi, Virginia ¹; Persi, Gabriel ¹; Martín, Clara ¹; Etcheverry, José ²; Gatto, Emilia ²

1 - Sanatorio de la Trinidad Mitre, 2 - Instituto de Neurociencias Buenos Aires (INEBA). Argentina

Summary: The International Restless Legs Syndrome Study Group sets 4 diagnostic criteria for restless legs syndrome (RLS) based on subjective information contributed by patients. A number of prevalence studies have been developed in different populations with invalidated surveys that had ignored the sensitivity and specificity of these instruments and present a rate of false positives greater than 10%. We recently designed a self-administered survey that includes the 4 diagnostic criteria to estimate the prevalence of RLS in an Argentine cohort.

Objectives: To estimate the sensitivity and specificity of the ad hoc survey.

Patients and methods: 76 surveys were distributed to individuals who visited our institution’s outpatient clinic as either patient or patient companion. Once the survey was completed, each individual was evaluated by a “blind” specialist who confirmed the presence or absence of RLS.

An independent observer then classified the patients as RLS+ and RLS-, depending on the specialist’s diagnosis and the positive or negative survey.

A third “blind” examination and survey professional carried out the statistical analysis with the G-stat 2 program.

Results: Of 76 surveys, 75 patients were evaluated. 22 individuals responded to the survey in the affirmative, and 17 of these were positively evaluated for RLS by the specialist. No patient with a negative survey was determined as RLS+ by the specialist. Survey sensitivity was 100%m and specificity was 91%.

Conclusions: Given that other entitities could use the criteria established for RLS, it is necessary to perform studies designed to validate, sensitivity and specificity of the instruments used in the prevalence studies.