Late Breaking Abstract - The SF-36 quality of life scales are sensitive measures of lung function decline

Introduction: Although quality of life is impaired in subjects with various lung diseases, the associations with objective measures of lung function have been reported to be weak. Objectives: To describe the association between lung function decline and impaired self-reported health-status in a large adult general population sample followed for 10 years. Methods: Associations between changes in lung function and the SF-36 Health Survey was investigated in 3,843 participants in the European Community Respiratory Health Survey (ECRHS) with complete data in the second (2002, age range 30-55 years) and third follow-up (2012). We estimated the association between change of maximum forced expired volume in 1 second (FEV1) and forced vital capacity (FVC) and change in each of the eight SF-36 health scales adjusting for sex, age and lung function at baseline. Results: Mean yearly change in FEV1 were 48 (standard deviation (SD) 30) ml in males and 40(22) ml in women. Corresponding changes in FVC were 40(38) and 31(30) ml. Increasing decline in FEV1 and FVC were highly significantly associated with reduced scores in the four scales predominantly measuring physical health at follow-up, but not the mental scales. A yearly decline of 50 ml in FEV1 was associated with a reduced score of 0.25 SD in physical functioning, 0.12 in role limitations due to physical problems, 0.10 in bodily pain and 0.24 in general perception of health. Conclusion: In a general population followed for 10 years, we found marked effects of lung function decline on the physical scales of the SF-36, but not on the mental scales. This indicates SF-36 scales as sensitive self-reported measures of changes in lung health. *Shared last authorship