Development of an inventory for dizziness and related factors

Dizziness is an extremely common complaint of patients, yet often goes unexplained after medical evaluation, which can lead to inappropriate treatment. There is a lack of psychometrically sound self-report instruments that measure dizziness and related factors. This study describes the application of factor analytic procedures with 184 dizzy patients' responses to develop the Dizzy Factor Inventory (DFI), a 44-item inventory divided into three sections and modeled after the Multidimensional Pain Inventory. The first section consists of symptom factors, the second concerns responses of significant others to the dizzy patient, and the third section assesses activity level. This inventory groups symptoms into empirically distinct factors that could be related in clinical and research applications to physiological and psychological processes, and could be useful for treatment planning and measuring treatment progress. Factors derived with dizzy patients are compared to factors found with chronic pain patients.