Results of quality of life assessment in asthmatic patients

A through insight into the quality of life of asthmatics provides for information on how seriously their activities and daily functioning are restricted by their condition and results in significantly more active patient contribution to the therapeutic regime as decided by a doctor. The aim of the study was to evaluate the quality of life in outpatient asthmatics, and to establish the correlation between the quality of life and conventional asthma indicators. The translated disease-specific? Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire? (AQLQ) has been administered in 100 asthmatics (mean asthma duration 10 years), in addition to the recordings of the detailed history, physical examination and pulmonary function assessment. The AQLQ has been confirmed as a standardized, validated and most frequently used quality of life questionnaire in asthmatics worldwide. The said procedure has been repeated in 44 patients at their control visit (after a 4-week period on the average). Such an approach provided for an assessment of the cross-sectional and longitudinal construct validity of the questionnaire. The correlations between the total AQLQ scores and all the spirometric parameters evaluated FVC(L), FVC% predicted, FEV1(L), FEV1% predicted, and Tiffeneau index) were statistically highly significant (p<0.01). The higher the value of spirometric parameters, the better patients, quality of life. The highest correlation with the total AQLQ score was for FEV1% predicted. Also, the correlation of total AQLQ scores with the treatment group scores was highly significant. The above results confirm the highly favorable cross-sectional construct validity of the AQLQ. On the other hand, the correlation between the total AQLQ scores changes and changes in evaluated conventional parameters of asthma severity proved to be statistically highly significant, too. This implies good longitudinal construct validity of the Serbian version of AQLQ. It should be stressed that, in the light of extended life expectancy of the population as a whole, growing asthma morbidity and mortality, there is an increasing need for a quality of life improvement in asthmatics. Now available valid instrument for the quality of life assessment with favorable measuring properties, the AQLQ should be more widely accepted by our health professionals as an up-to-date scientific concept, the one what could contribute significantly to the better treatment of this chronic condition, i.e. its better control and improvement of the patients, quality of life.