A new tool to evaluate the impact of chronic urticaria on quality of life: chronic urticaria quality of life questionnaire (CU‐Q2oL)

Chronic Urticaria (CU) is a skin disorder characterizedby erithematous wheals, intense itch, with or withoutangioedema, daily for at least 6–8 weeks and can persistsfor years (1, 2). It remains a big problem in terms ofaetiology, pathogenetic mechanism and pharmacologictreatment. A critical aspect in the management of CU isits burden on patient’s well-being and quality of life.The expression quality of life, and more specificallyhealth-related quality of life (HRQoL), has been intro-duced to refer the impact of an illness and its therapyupon a patient, as perceived by the patient himself (3).With rising frequency HRQoL assessment is included inoutcome research, providing data about the consequencesof disease and treatment from the patient’s perspective.Accordingly a large number of instruments have beenvalidated, both generic and disease specific. Genericquestionnaire has been developed to assess HRQoL inall health conditions. Specific questionnaires, whilstevaluating the multiple aspects of HRQoL, comprisecontent specific to the health problem in question, makingthem more sensitive and potentially more responsive tochanges following clinical intervention.Although CU can be a problem that interferes withsubjective well-being and daily life, usually its evaluationhas focused on clinical endpoints. While numerousstudies are now available about HRQL in other derma-tological conditions, only few reports on this topic inpatients with CU have been found in the literaturesearch. Using the generic Nottingham Health Profile,O’Donnel et al. (4) showed that adult patients with CUreport QoL scores comparable with those of patientssuffering from coronary artery disease. Health statusand subjective satisfaction in CU have been recentlyassessed by mean of two generic tools, SF-36 and SAT-P(5); the presence of CU seems to have a substantialburden on both physical and emotional components ofhealth status, with a consequent negative influence onsubjective satisfaction. Poon and colleagues evaluatedthe nature of disability caused in CU patients using aspeciality-specific measure, and highlighted the degree ofBackground: Health-related quality of Life in patients with chronic urticaria isevaluated by mean of generic instruments or questionnaire designed for skindiseases. No disease-specific tool is now available for the assessment of chronicurticaria impact from patients 3viewpoint.Objective: The aim of our study is to develop and validate a new questionnairespecifically designed for the assessment of quality of life in chronic urticaria(Chronic Urticaria Quality of Life Questionnaire – CU-Q