The development of the ‘Quality-of-Life for Respiratory Illness Questionnaire (QOL-RIQ)’: a disease-specific quality-of-life questionnaire for patients with mild to moderate chronic non-specific lung disease

Abstract

Chronic non-specific lung disease (CNSLD) encompasses asthma as well as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Recently in health care, there has been increasing awareness in the functional, psychological and social aspects of the health of patients; their quality of life (QOL). Quality-of-life research addressing CNSLD patients has been rather underdeveloped for a long period of time. Recently, however, the importance of QOL is being increasingly recognized, and several research groups have started to study QOL in CNSLD patients in more detail. This paper describes the construction of a disease-specific QOL instrument for patients with mild to moderately severe CNSLD. Items relating to several domains of QOL were listed, and 171 CNSLD patients in general practice were asked how much of a problem each item had been (assessed on a seven-point Likert scale). After applying an item-selection procedure, a uni-dimensional QOL questionnaire was constructed consisting of 55 items divided into seven domain subscales: breathing problems, physical problems, emotions, situations triggering or enhancing breathing problems, general activities, daily and domestic activities, and social activities, relationships and sexuality. Reliability estimates of the domain subscales of the constructed questionnaire varied from 0.68 to 0.89, and was 0.92 for the QOL for Respiratory Illness Questionnaire (QOL-RIQ) total scale. A first impression of the construct validity of the questionnaire was gained by investigation of the relationship between the QOL domain subscales and several indicators of illness severity, as well as the relative contribution of illness severity variables, background characteristics and symptoms to QOL, using regression analysis. Further research to validate the questionnaire to a greater extent (construct validity, test-retest reliability and responsiveness to change) is currently taking place.

Outcomes for COPD pharmacological trials: from lung function to biomarkers

“…QoL-RIQ was developed in 1997 for use in mild-to-moderate asthma and COPD [121]. It has seven domains: breathing problems; physical problems; emotions; situations triggering or enhancing breathing problems; general activities; daily and domestic activities; and social activities, relationships and sexuality.…”

Factors that influence disease-specific quality of life or health status in patients with COPD: a systematic review and meta-analysis of Pearson correlations

“…Higher age was reported as a negative predicting factor for the health status of patients with COPD in 17 studies. 7,20,28,[29][30][31][32]38,[40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48] In eight studies we found no significant correlation between age and health status [49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56] and, in another eight studies, it was reported that younger patients had worse health status. 33,[57][58][59][60][61][62][63] The meta-analysis includes only a small number of studies that reported correlations since the large majority of studies only reported comparisons between age groups.…”

“…The implementation of short instruments to measure health status has significantly improved their usage in daily clinical practice. [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] However, the currently available health status questionnaires have a number of differences in the concepts included, and various items are unique in some questionnaires. 25,26 The theoretical model of factors that potentially have an influence on health status includes factors such as age, gender, disease severity, lung function, body mass index (BMI), smoking status, symptoms, exercise capacity, co-morbidity, depression, anxiety, and exacerbations.…”

The assessment of health status among patients with COPD

“…The domains are breathing problems, physical problems, emotions, situations triggering or enhancing breathing problems, daily and domestic activities, social activities, relationships and sexuality, and general activities. Although test/retest reliability and responsiveness have not been reported, the instrument shows internal consistency and construct validation [101,102].…”