Psychometric properties of a Swedish version of the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire in a Chronic Heart Failure population

Background: Valid assessments of health-related Quality of Life (HRQL) are increasingly important in chronic, incurable conditions, such as chronic heart failure (CHF). Aims: To evaluate the psychometric properties of a Swedish version of the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire (KCCQ) in hospitalized patients with decompensated CHF. Method and results: The KCCQ and SF-36 were administered to patients (n = 118) with CHF at baseline and then 1 (n = 5 1) and 4 months (n = 83) after admission. The Swedish version of the KCCQ appears to have acceptable convergent and discriminant validity for all suggested health domains. Cronbach's alpha and test-retest reliability met for most of the scales the minimum of 0.70. Known-groups comparison indicated that the KCCQ discriminated between patients differing in the New York Heart Association (N-YHA) classification (criterion validity). The KCCQ was also more responsive to changes in the NYHA classification as compared with the SF-36. However, KCCQ has some weakness in the response distributions for two questions and the convergent validity in one question. Conclusion: Overall, the KCCQ is a valid and reliable instrument in a Swedish CHF population. It yields reliable and valid scores and is quite responsive to clinical change. (C) 2007 European Society of Cardiology. Published by Elsevier B.V All rights reserved.