COPD & Emphysema Support Group
COPD is a progressive disease characterized by airflow obstruction or limitation. Emphysema is characterized by loss of elasticity of the lung tissue, destruction of structures supporting the alveoli and of capillaries feeding the alveoli. Both have symptoms that include shortness of breath, among other respiratory troubles. If you are a COPD or Emphysema sufferer, join...
Health status in COPD cannot be measured by the St George's Respiratory Questionnaire alone: an evaluation of the underlying concepts of this questionnaire
Improving patients'health status is one of the major goals in COPD treatment. Questionnaires could facilitate the guidance of patient-tailored disease management by exploring which aspects of health status are problematic, and which aspects are not.
Health status consists of four main domains (physiological functioning, symptoms, functional impairment, and quality of life), and at least sixteen sub-domains. A prerequisite for patient-tailored treatment is a detailed assessment of all these sub-domains.
Most questionnaires developed to measure health status consist of one or a few subscales and measure merely some aspects of health status. The question then rises which aspects of health status are measured by these instruments, and which aspects are not covered.
As it is one of the most frequently used questionnaires in COPD, we evaluated which aspects of health status are measured and which aspects are not measured by the St George's Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ).
Methods: One hundred and forty-six outpatients with COPD participated. Correlations were calculated between the three sections of the SGRQ and ten sub-domains of the Nijmegen Integral Assessment Framework, covering Symptoms, Functional Impairment, and Quality of Life.
As the SGRQ was not expected to measure physiological functioning, we did not include this main domain in the statistical analyses. Pearson's r greater than or equal to 0.70 was used as criterion for conceptual similarity.
Results: The SGRQ sections Symptoms and Total showed conceptual similarity with the sub-domain Subjective Symptoms (main domain Symptoms).
The sections Activity, Impacts and Total were conceptual similar to Subjective Impairment (main domain Functional Impairment). The SGRQ sections were not conceptual similar to other sub-domains of Symptoms, Functional Impairment, nor to any sub-domain of Quality of Life.
Conclusions: The SGRQ could facilitate the guidance of disease management in COPD only partially.
The SGRQ is appropriately only for measuring problems in the sub-domains Subjective Symptoms and Subjective Impairment, and not for measuring problems in other sub-domains of health status, such as Quality of Life.
I most of us filled out the St George's Respiratory Questionnaire before we begin Pulmonary Rehab and then they follow up with us for at least a year after.
So I thought you would find it interesting, and its in the news today.
Hope your having a nice day and your Breathing Easy,
Hugs to all,
Holly
Improving patients'health status is one of the major goals in COPD treatment. Questionnaires could facilitate the guidance of patient-tailored disease management by exploring which aspects of health status are problematic, and which aspects are not.
Health status consists of four main domains (physiological functioning, symptoms, functional impairment, and quality of life), and at least sixteen sub-domains. A prerequisite for patient-tailored treatment is a detailed assessment of all these sub-domains.
Most questionnaires developed to measure health status consist of one or a few subscales and measure merely some aspects of health status. The question then rises which aspects of health status are measured by these instruments, and which aspects are not covered.
As it is one of the most frequently used questionnaires in COPD, we evaluated which aspects of health status are measured and which aspects are not measured by the St George's Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ).
Methods: One hundred and forty-six outpatients with COPD participated. Correlations were calculated between the three sections of the SGRQ and ten sub-domains of the Nijmegen Integral Assessment Framework, covering Symptoms, Functional Impairment, and Quality of Life.
As the SGRQ was not expected to measure physiological functioning, we did not include this main domain in the statistical analyses. Pearson's r greater than or equal to 0.70 was used as criterion for conceptual similarity.
Results: The SGRQ sections Symptoms and Total showed conceptual similarity with the sub-domain Subjective Symptoms (main domain Symptoms).
The sections Activity, Impacts and Total were conceptual similar to Subjective Impairment (main domain Functional Impairment). The SGRQ sections were not conceptual similar to other sub-domains of Symptoms, Functional Impairment, nor to any sub-domain of Quality of Life.
Conclusions: The SGRQ could facilitate the guidance of disease management in COPD only partially.
The SGRQ is appropriately only for measuring problems in the sub-domains Subjective Symptoms and Subjective Impairment, and not for measuring problems in other sub-domains of health status, such as Quality of Life.
I most of us filled out the St George's Respiratory Questionnaire before we begin Pulmonary Rehab and then they follow up with us for at least a year after.
So I thought you would find it interesting, and its in the news today.
Hope your having a nice day and your Breathing Easy,
Hugs to all,
Holly
-
My 6mo twin DD's are EBF and just started rice cereal on the first. Everything has been going fine except this morning one of them had a diaper rash (lots of redness around her anus). I read this as one of the signs of an allergy. BUT I did just buy a different brand diaper yesterday (which they have used randomly before w/no issues). Do you think its the cereal or the diaper? Im ready to start...
Is this questionnaire something in place of PFT's, in conjunction with PFTs or used to evaluate PFTs? Deb
Developed by Paul Jones at St. George's Hospital in London in 1990, this measure is a disease-specific instrument designed to measure impact on overall health, daily life, and perceived well-being. It was developed for use by patients with fixed and reversible airway obstruction. The measure consists of 50 (76 responses) items that produce three domain scores and one overall score measuring:
Symptom (frequency and severity); Activity (activities that cause or are limited by breathlessness); and Impacts (social functioning, psychological disturbances resulting from airways disease).
It is important to note that Section I (Symptoms) contains items on a five-point Likert scale; Sections II (Activity) and III (Impacts) are dichotomous (yes/no) items.
Hope this helps,
Hugs, Holly
The information is combined.