Reliability and Validity of a Hong Kong Chinese Version of the St George's Respiratory Questionnaire in Patients with COPD

AbstractThe St George's Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ) is a self-administered questionnaire designed to measure quality of life (QOL) covering three areas (symptoms, activity and impacts) in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The aim of the present study was to develop a Chinese version of the SGRQ (SGRQ-HK) and assess its psychometric properties. A forward and back-translation method was used, which included professional and lay people. Psychometric and clinical evaluations included 54 patients with COPD (31 males: mean age, 71.22 ± 5.95 years; 23 females: mean age, 68.8 ± 8.64 years). An additional QOL questionnaire and clinical and physiological data were also collected. The correlation coefficient between “symptoms” and dyspnoea was 0.67, that between “activity” and the 6-minute walk test was −0.78, between “impacts” and “mental health” of the SF-36 Health Survey Mental Health Inventory was −0.62; and between “total” and “general health” of the SF-36 was −0.87. Cronbach's a ranged from 0.74 to 0.95 for the whole questionnaire and its three subscales. Test-retest reliability showed intraclass correlation coefficients of all the dimensions exceeding 0.70. The three-factor structure of the SGRQ-HK was established. In conclusion, the SGRQ-HK is reliable and valid and compares well with the original English version

Concurrent validity of an electronic descriptive pain scale

The study objective was to assess the concurrent validity of the Electronic Descriptive Pain Scale (EDPS), a pain scale built into a transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation device. One hundred patients in an outpatient physiotherapy (PT) clinic participated (mean age 41.30 years, SD 13.95). Before and after a PT treatment, subjects rated their current pain intensity with the EDPS, a visual analogue scale, a numerical pain rating scale, and the McGill Pain Questionnaire's Present Pain Intensity. The results showed relatively high significant correlations between the EDPS and each of the other pain scales

Pain in the physical therapy curriculum

Pain is a leading cause of distress and disability and is central to clinical practice, but may not be central to the education of physical therapists. The purpose of this study was to determine the current status of pain topics taught in PT curricula. A questionnaire was mailed to 169 accredited PT programs in North America. Information was obtained on PT faculty's perception of the adequacy with which pain and pain related topics were taught within PT curricula, and the competency of their graduates to assess and manage pain. A response rate of 63.3 percent was obtained. Key results were as follows. The modal amount of time spent on pain was four hours. The majority of faculty thought that pain was adequately covered in their curriculum although their perceptions of graduates' competency to assess and treat individuals with pain were higher for acute than chronic pain. Unidimensional pain assessment scales were perceived as adequately covered in more programs (81.7%) than multidimensional scales (61.5%). Pain management techniques were thought to be adequately covered in over 80 percent of the programs. However, pain in the elderly and in children were not thought to be adequately covered in 57.3 percent and 76.2 percent of the programs, respectively. Only 33 percent of the respondents thought that cognitive-behavioural approaches to pain management were adequately covered. Although a large proportion of faculty perceived that the time spent on pain topics, in general, was inadequate, most perceived that an adequate time was spent when asked about specific pain topics in the curriculum. It is difficult to reconcile the discrepancy between the scant number of hours spent on the topic of pain with faculty's perceptions that, for most topics, adequate time is devoted to the area