Current Status of Disease-specific and Domain-specific Health-related Quality of Life Research in Korea

Park, Hye Ja; Kim, Sehyun; Bae, Sang Cheol

Abstract

OBJECTIVE
This paper reviews the existing Korean medical and public health, and nursing academy articles on disease-specific and domain-specific quality of life, and provides recommendations for the universally validated core quality of life instruments and for use of these measures in clinical trials widely.
METHODS
Quality of Life Instruments Database (QOLID) was searched in order to identify all relevant disease-specific, population-specific, and domain-specific QOL instruments. Titles and abstracts of 27 articles related to QOL research conducted by Korean researchers were retrieved from MEDLINE and RICH database. These articles were comprehensively reviewed to analyse the cross cultural adaptation, validation and other aspects of application of Korean version of QOL measures.
RESULTS
1. The journal search yielded a total 27 disease-specific and domain-specific articles, of which 22 were published in Korean nursing academic journal, 5 in medical and public health journals 2. Search for QOLID resulted in 92 specific QOL measures. Thirty-six instruments of which 31 were disease-specific measures, 2 symptom-specific, 2 population-specific, and 1 domain-specific, were translated into Korean language among them. Four Korean version of specific QOL measures were used in articles in MEDLINE. They were Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ), Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Arthritis Index (WOMAC), Childhood Health Assessment Questionnaire (CHAQ), and Child Health Questionnaire (CHQ). An article using Korean version of Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQ) is in press. 3. The Korean validated instruments published at international academic articles were HAQ, WOMAC, CHAQ, and CHQ. 4. The Korean version of Parkinson's Disease Questionnaire (PDQ), Kidney Disease Quality of Life Instrument (KDQOL), Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy (FACT), Functional Assessment of Anorexia/Cachexia (FACTT), Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Fatigue (FACIT- F), Functional Assessment of Spiritual Wellbeing (FACT-Sp), and FACT-Anemia are going on Korean validation and data collection under the author contact and permission. 5. Twenty six studies out of 27 Korean articles reported the use of 16 kinds of Western instrument. There were some flaws such as omission of validation steps, deletion of items, arbitrary change of response scale, and absence of cultural adaptation and conceptual consideration in those articles.
CONCLUSION
To use the health outcomes disease-specific instruments universally and to perform multi-national studies, it is suggested that cross-cultural equivalence across all translated versions and conceptual equivalence of translated instruments to the original version must be verified and the quality of life assessment need to be applied to clinical trials.