BackgroundThere is no standard palliative care outcome measure for people with progressive long term neurological conditions (LTNC). This study aims to determine the psychometric properties of a new 8-item palliative care outcome scale of symptom burden (IPOS Neuro-S8) in this population.Data and MethodsData were merged from a Phase II palliative care intervention study in multiple sclerosis (MS) and a longitudinal observational study in idiopathic Parkinson’s disease (IPD), multiple system atrophy (MSA) and progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP). The IPOS Neuro-S8 was assessed for its data quality, score distribution, ceiling and floor effects, reliability, factor structure, convergent and discriminant validity, concurrent validity with generic (Palliative care Outcome Scale) and condition specific measures (Multiple Sclerosis Impact Scale; Non-motor Symptoms Questionnaire; Parkinson’s Disease Questionnaire), responsiveness and minimally clinically important difference.ResultsOf the 134 participants, MS patients had a mean Extended Disability Status Scale score 7.8 (SD = 1.0), patients with an IPD, MSA or PSP were in Hoehn & Yahr stage 3–5. The IPOS Neuro-S8 had high data quality (2% missing), mean score 8 (SD = 5; range 0–32), no ceiling effects, borderline floor effects, good internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = 0.7) and moderate test-retest reliability (intraclass coefficient = 0.6). The results supported a moderately correlated two-factor structure (Pearson’s r = 0.5). It was moderately correlated with generic and condition specific measures (Pearson’s r: 0.5–0.6). There was some evidence for discriminant validity in IPD, MSA and PSP (p = 0.020), and for good responsiveness and longitudinal construct validity.ConclusionsIPOS Neuro-S8 shows acceptable to promising psychometric properties in common forms of progressive LTNCs. Future work needs to confirm these findings with larger samples and its usefulness in wider disease groups.

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Farmers Producer Company (FPC) has emerged as a new business model for the rural area. Like agriculture and horticulture, it is working in poultry sector too. With an intuition to find out the impact of poultry based Farmer Producer Company on upliftment of rural people, the present study was conducted by selecting Madhya Pradesh Women Poultry Producer Company Pvt. Limited (MPWPCL) founded by a team of poor rural women. An Ex-Post Facto research design was used. Difference in difference technique was utilized to estimate the actual impact of FPCs. To measure the effectiveness of MPWPCL and its impact, two indices, viz. effectiveness index and livelihood wellbeing index were prepared. Study was conducted in Orchha district of Madhya Pradesh from 37 randomly selected poultry growers' members and 15 nonmember respondents from the same locale. The MPWPCL was found highly effective with overall effectiveness score of 71.88. Joining the FPC has improved the poor rural women's human, social and political dimensions of livelihood empowerment in addition to a significant economic gain.

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