Validation of the Quality of Recovery-40 Questionnaire Adapted for Croatian Population

Abstract

Quality of recovery after anesthesia is an important indicator of patient postoperative outcomes. Quality of is a validated and widely used multidimensional 40-item questionnaire that measures postoperative quality of recovery. The aim of this study was to perform translation and psychometric validation of the Croatian version of QoR-40, which included validity, reliability, responsiveness, and clinical acceptability. The QoR-40 and Short Form-36 (SF-36) questionnaires were administered to patients undergoing general anesthesia for elective surgery on the day before surgery and on postoperative day 3. The quality of recovery was also assessed with visual analog scale (VAS) 0-100. Of 192 enrolled patients, 162 completed the study protocol. Convergent validity assessed by Pearson correlation (r) between the QoR-40 and VAS scores was 0.68 (p<0.001). There were moderate correlations of QoR-40 with SF-36 Physical component scale (r=0.521; p<0.001) and with SF-36 Mental component scale (r=0.580; p<0.001). Construct validity was supported by negative correlation with the length of hospital stay (r=-0.21; p=0.007) and significant difference in total postoperative QoR-40 scores between patients with and without postoperative complications (p<0.001). Internal consistency of the global QoR-40 was high (Cronbach's α=0.93) and of the QoR-40 dimensions it was moderate to high (≥0.714). Split-half coefficient was 0.87, Cohen's effect size was 0.81, and standardized response mean was 0.762. Our translated QoR-40 is a valid, reliable and comprehensive questionnaire for measuring quality of postoperative recovery across surgery spectrum in Croatian population with psychometric properties similar to the original version.