A Comparison of the Assessment of Quality of Life with CAT, CCQ, and SGRQ in COPD Patients Participating in Pulmonary Rehabilitation

Background: The aim of this study was to compare the COPD specific health-related quality of life (HR-QoL) instruments, the St George's Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ), COPD Assessment Test (CA T), and COPD Clinical Questionnaire (CCQ), in terms of feasibility and correlations in COPD patients participating in pulmonary rehabilitation (PR). Methods/materials: Ninety consecutive patients with mainly severe COPD who participated in a 7-week PR programme were assessed with CA T, CCQ, SGRQ. In addition to evaluating the scores obtained by the questionnaires we also assessed the need of help and the time needed to complete the questionnaires. Results: Patients had mean FEV1 = 38.7% of predicted value and poor quality of life (mean SGRQ total score 51.1, CA T 1.81, and CCQ 26.5 units). There were good correlations between the overall scores for the three HR-QoL instruments: CA T versus CCQ, r = 0.77; CA T versus SGRQ, r = 0.73; and CCQ versus SGRQ, r = 0.75 (p < 0.001 for all correlations). The average time to complete the questionnaires was 578 seconds for SGRQ, 107 seconds for CA T, and 134 seconds for CCQ. The need for assistance while answering the questionnaire was 86.5% for SGRQ, 53.9% for CA T, and 36.0% for CCQ. Conclusions : we observed a good correlation between the SGRQ, CCQ and CA T in this group of patients with severe COPD undergoing pulmonary rehabilitation. We found that CA T and CCQ have the advantage of being easier and faster to complete than the SGRQ. The need for help with the completion of the questionnaires was especially seen in patients with low education level.