Patient-reported outcomes in primary care patients with COPD: psychometric properties and usefulness of the Clinical COPD Questionnaire (CCQ). A cross-sectional study.

Modifying a questionnaire for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) could help to monitor disease flare-ups. The Clinical COPD Questionnaire (CCQ) was developed in 2003 to assess the effects of COPD on patients' daily lives. Since then it has been used extensively as a measure of patient-reported outcome, despite being less reliable than other tools for assessing healthstatus. Victor Pop and colleagues at Tilburg University in The Netherlands examined the psychometric properties of the CCQ in 487 primary care patients with COPD. Eliminating four items from the questionnaire (covering issues regarding the patient's mental state and functional limitations in daily and social activities) could lead to a better assessment of the frequency of breathlessness, cough and phlegm production in patients suffering from a mild form of COPD.