Tipaporn Pongmesa

Validity and reliability of the Thai version of the leicester cough questionnaire in chronic cough

BACKGROUND Chronic cough is a common problem potentially disturbing the quality of life (QoL) of coughers. The Leicester Cough Questionnaire (LCQ), previously developed in England, is a validated, self-completed QoL instrument for assessment of chronic cough. This study aimed to develop a Thai version of the LCQ (LCQ-T) and assess its validity and reliability among adult Thai patients with subacute to chronic cough. METHODS A total of 146 patients with a cough lasting for more than 3 weeks consented to participate in this study and self-administered the LCQ-T, together with the following 3 instruments: Borg Cough Scale (BCS), Short Form-36 (SF-36), and Hospital Anxiety Depression Scale (Thai-HADS). The LCQ-T was developed by applying a forward-backward translation approach. The LCQ-T comprises 19 items divided into 3 domains: physical (8 items), psychological (7 items), and social (4 items). To validate the LCQ-T, concurrent validity, internal consistency reliability, and test-retest reliability were assessed. RESULTS Participants included 96 women and 50 men with a mean (SD) age of 59.6 (14.4) years. The concurrent validity comparing LCQ-T to BCS yielded statistically significant Pearson correlation coefficients (r= -0.74, P<0.05). The correlation coefficients for SF-36 and Thai-HADS were also significant. The LCQ-T demonstrated very good internal consistency in all domains and the overall scale, with the Cronbachs alpha coefficients ranging from 0.89 to 0.94. The 3-day repeatability of the LCQ-T in 25 clinically stable patients was high with the intra-class correlation coefficients ranging between 0.81 and 0.90. CONCLUSION LCQ-T is a valid and reliable cough-specific instrument for assessing symptoms and QoL of adult Thai patients with subacute to chronic cough.

Health-Related Quality of Life and Functional Ability of Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Study from a Tertiary Care Hospital in Thailand

OBJECTIVES To assess the health-related quality of life and functional ability of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) using the Thai EuroQol five-dimensional questionnaire (EQ-5D) and the Thai Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ), and to analyze correlations between the scores from both questionnaires. METHODS This cross-sectional study was conducted among 221 patients with RA aged 18 years or older at a tertiary care hospital in Thailand. Data collection methods included individual patient interviews and data gathering from medical records. The correlations between the EQ-5D and HAQ scores were analyzed using Spearmans rank correlation coefficients. RESULTS Most patients were female (78.3%), aged 41 to 60 years (57.0%), having had RA for 12 to 60 months (43.0%), and being in an active disease state (60.6%). From the EQ-5D, most patients reported no problems in each dimension, except for mobility and pain/discomfort. For the HAQ, most patients reported no difficulty for almost all activities, except for arising. The medians (interquartile ranges) for the EQ-5D utility, EuroQol visual analogue scale (EQ VAS), and HAQ scores were 0.65 (0.55-0.73), 70 (50-80), and 0.25 (0.00-0.81), respectively. The Spearmans rank correlation coefficients were 0.42 for the EQ-5D utility and EQ VAS scores (P = 0.01), -0.65 for the EQ-5D utility and HAQ scores (P < 0.001), and -0.39 for the EQ VAS and HAQ scores (P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS The health-related quality of life and functional ability of most patients in our study were partially affected by the disease. The EQ-5D and HAQ scores significantly correlated at a moderate to strong level.

Minimal Clinically Important Differences (MCIDs) of the Thai Version of the Leicester Cough Questionnaire for Subacute and Chronic Cough

OBJECTIVES To investigate the minimal clinically important differences (MCIDs) of the Thai version of the Leicester Cough Questionnaire (LCQ-T) in patients with subacute and chronic cough. METHODS Patients with cough for 3 or more weeks were recruited from outpatient clinics. They self-completed the LCQ-T at an initial evaluation and repeated the LCQ-T with a Global Rating of Change scale at follow-up. For the anchor-based method, the MCID was defined as a change in the LCQ scores that corresponded to the smallest improvement in Global Rating of Change score (+2 to +3). For distribution-based methods, the MCIDs were estimated from the standard error of measurement and a half and one-third of the SD of the LCQ score changes from baseline to follow-up. RESULTS A total of 107 patients were included. The causes of cough were postinfectious cough/bronchitis (35.5%), asthma (20.6%), rhinosinusitis (16.8%), bronchiectasis (17.8%), and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (9.3%). The anchor-based method yielded MCIDs of 1.1, 0.4, 0.4, and 0.4 for the total, physical, psychological, and social domains, respectively. The distribution-based method using standard error qof measurement yielded MCIDs of 0.8, 0.3, 0.3, and 0.3, whereas those using a half SD yielded MCIDs of 2.0, 0.6, 0.8, and 0.8 and those using one-third SD yielded MCIDs of 1.4, 0.4, 0.5, and 0.5 for the total, physical, psychological, and social domains, respectively. CONCLUSIONS The MCIDs of the LCQ-T for subacute and chronic cough are 1.1, 0.4, 0.4, and 0.4 for the total, physical, psychological, and social domains, respectively. These estimates should be useful in making meaningful interpretations of the changes in quality of life because of cough.

PDB16 DEVELOPMENT OF A THAI VERSION OF THE AUDIT OF DIABETESDEPENDENT QUALITY OF LIFE (ADDQOL-19) QUESTIONNAIRE: LINGUISTIC AND PSYCHOMETRIC EVALUATION

duration of known diabetes was 6.80 ± 6.67 years. A substantial negative impact of diabetes on the participants’ HRQoL was observed as assessed by the ADDQoL (mean ± SD average weighted impact (AWI) score: −3.76 ± 2.03 from the possible range −9 to +3), although the level of their TS was rather high as assessed by the DTSQs (mean ± SD TS scale total: 28.60 ± 5.53 out of 36). The participants’ EQ-5D scores (mean ± SD EQ-utility score: 0.74 ± 0.20; EQ-VAS score: 65.22 ± 17.54) were only slightly lower than the norm values for the general population (0.80 ± 0.26 and 79.74 ± 18.23 for the two scores, respectively). Higher income was signifi cantly associated with better health status while lower education and unemployment status were signifi cantly associated with poorer HRQoL. Female gender and older age were associated with higher TS. CONCLUSIONS: Diabetes had major impact on the participants’ HRQoL but little impact on health status despite a high level of TS. Patient characteristics associated with these outcomes were also different.