Department of Questionnaire Measuring Quality of Life in Pneumoconioses

Baak, Young Mann; Ahn, Young Byoung; Mun, Je Hyeok; Jeong, Jin Sook; Kim, Ji Hong; Kim, Kyoung Ah; Lim, Young

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Pneumoconiosis, like other chronic respiratory diseases, is essentially incurable and, for many, pregressive. While improved survival time is an important aim of treatment, there is growing recognition that for some people, improving the quality of life is more important than extending the length of life. Recently the measurement of the quality of life is used to assess the efficacy of therapeutic agents.
METHODS
We interviewed 63 pnemoconiotics who were admitted to St. Mary's Hospital between April and August 1999, using COOP charts, Chronic Respiratory Questionnaire (CRQ), and a newly developed questionnaire concerning clinical and socioeconomic features of the pneumoconiotics - Pneumoconiotic Respiratory Questionnaire (PRQ). Also, ILO classification of the chest film, pulmonary function test, and arterial blood gas analysis of the patients were evaluated. Then we compared the scores between insurace assisted and non-insurance assisted patients, and between clinically stable and unstable patients. RESULRS: Domains of CRQ and PRQ showed a high internal consistency reliability (alpha =0.86-0.89, 0.77-0.81) except the dyspnea domain(alpha=0.63) of CRQ. The scores of CRQ and PRQ showed statistically significant correlations with the results of COOP charts, pulmonary function test and arterial blood gas analysis. The dyspnea domain and socia l activity domain of the PRQ showed significant difference between insurance assisted and non-insurance assisted patients, and between clinically stable and unstable patients.
CONCLUSION
Korean translation of the Chronic Respiratory Questionnaire and the newly developed Pneumoconiotic Respiratory Questionnaire are reliable and valid method and are likely to be useful for the measuring of quality of life in patients with the chronic respiratory disease including pneumoconiosis.