Background: Cough is the most common presenting symptom in primary practice.[1] Chronic, exhausted cough has a significant impact on the quality of life [2]. Cough questionnaire was developed to evaluate the quality of life for patients with chronic cough. Unfortunatelly, such kind of health status measurement do not exist in Lithuania yet.
Methods:The translation of Leicester Cough Questionnaire (LCQ) was made using all methods that are required, following a forward-backward translation procedure. The Questionnaire and Visaul Analogue Scale (VAS) was completed by 53 patients with chronic cough (duration of cough > 8 weeks).The Questionnaire was divided into three domains: physical, psychological and social. To validate LCQ we tested three different aspects, i.e. the concurrent validity, the internal consistency and the repeatability.Results: A strong correlation was established among the domains of the questionnaire and a statistically significant correlation established between the questionnaire and VAS. Cronbach`s alpha coefficients for the internal consistency were from 0,787 to 0,927. The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of the testretest reliability was 0,89 (p<0,0001).
Conclusion:The Lithuanian version of Leicester Cough Questionnaire is ready, compatible with original and understandable for patients. Leicester Cough Questionnaire appears to be valid, reliable and highly responsive.
BackgroundCough is one of the most common causes of presentation to general practice. Cough that has been persisted longer than three weeks is subacute (three to eight weeks) or chronic (more than eight weeks) About 15 precentages of non smoking people complain about the chronic cough [1].Chronic cough is the most common complain during the visit to a pulmonologist. Cough is described as a protective reflex that removes excessive secretions and inhaled foreign bodies from the respiratory tract. The anatomy of respiratory tract which is plentiful of cough receptors is the reason, that the most frequently causes of chronic cough are upper airway disorders, asthma and gastroesophageal reflux. There is some controversy if these conditions are aggravants or causes of cough. What is more, many people have a cough reflex sensitivity and their cough cannot be expalined [2,3].Patients with chronic cough suffer physical and psychological morbidity. Long lasting chronic cough can affect the quality of life interfering with physical symptoms as chest pain, syncope, incontinence, sore throat and headaches. What is more, people are more depressed, feel anxienty or social embarrassment of their cough. It can dissturb not only work and activity but also family members and friends [2-6].To effectively evaluate the impact of chronic cough on quality of life, it is important to have valid measurement tools. A number of measurment tools including questionnaires, cough diaries, visual analogue scales, electronic recordings, and human counts are available to assess the impact of quality of life for people with chronic cough. However...