Quality of life in chronic venous disease patients measured by short Chronic Venous Disease Quality of Life Questionnaire (CIVIQ-14) in Serbia

Background: This was a psychometric validation of the short Chronic Venous Disease Quality of Life Questionnaire (CIVIQ-14) as quality of life (QOL) instrument for chronic venous disease (CVD) patients. Methods: Patients aged > 18 years who had CVD in CEAP C stages C-0s to C-6 were included in the study. Diagnosis was made by general practitioners according to CVD symptoms and visual examination of the lower extremities. QOL was assessed with the self-administrated CIVIQ-14. The reliability, construct, and convergent validity of the CIVIQ-14 was estimated as well as QOL of CVD patients according to CEAP C stages. Results: The study comprised 2260 subjects who fully completed the CIVIQ-14. CIVIQ-14 had a high level of reliability, construct, and convergent validity, but the structure of its three dimensions (pain [P], physical [PHY], and psychological [PSY]) was suboptimal. After adjustment for age, body mass index, and number of CVD symptoms, CIVIQ -14 global, P, PHY, and PSY scores showed significant progressive reduction of QOL from CEAP class C0s to C6. These differences were present in both sexes. The progressive impairment of the QOL involved primarily the pain and the physical items. For all CEAP C classes, the P and PHY scores were lower than the PSY scores. Global scores for men and women were: 76.7 and 73.9 for C-0s; 75.5 and 70.6 for C-1; 67.8 and 64.5 for C-2; 68.3 and 61.6 for C-3; 60.7 and 54.6 for C-4; 49.5 and 50.2 for C-5; and 41.3 and 46.7 for C-6. Conclusions: CVD in the lower extremities has a substantial effect on both physical and psychologic aspects of QOL, the physical aspects of QOL (P and PHY items) being more important. CIVIQ-14 is valuable in assessing QOL in CVD patients. Further investigations are necessary to confirm the stability of its two dimensions.