Chest
Volume 121, Issue 4, April 2002, Pages 1123-1131
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Clinical Investigations
COUGH
Evaluation of a Cough-Specific Quality-of-Life Questionnaire

https://doi.org/10.1378/chest.121.4.1123Get rights and content

Study objective

To psychometrically evaluate a cough-specific quality-of-life questionnaire (CQLQ) in adults.

Design

Prospective evaluation of CQLQ using three different cohorts of adult subjects with cough.

Setting

Academic tertiary-care ambulatory medical facilities.

Participants

One hundred fifty-four subjects complaining of chronic cough, 30 of acute cough, and 31 smokers with cough.

Interventions

Self-administration of the CQLQ in acute coughers, smokers, and chronic coughers before and after therapy.

Measurements

Psychometric analyses including factor analysis (FA), and assessments of reliability and validity.

Results

Acute and chronic cough data were subjected to FA, and the Cronbach α and interitem correlations were computed. FA of chronic and acute cough data (n = 184) revealed six subscales. The Cronbach α for the total CQLQ was 0.92, and it was 0.62 to 0.86 (mean, 0.76) for the six subscales. Interitem correlations for the total CQLQ ranged from −0.06 to 0.72, with a mean of 0.28. Test-retest reliability in 52 chronic coughers demonstrated nonsignificant changes with readministration of the questionnaire, and the intraclass correlation for total CQLQ was 0.89, and for the subscales the range was 0.75 to 0.93. Analysis of variance followed by tests of contrasts among all possible pairings of chronic coughers, acute coughers, and smokers showed significant differences (p ≤ 0.001) among the groups. Posttreatment cure scores were significantly lower (p ≤ 0.001) than pretreatment scores in 24 chronic coughers.

Conclusions

The 28-item CQLQ has dimensionality that is consistent with a cough-specific quality-of-life instrument. It is a valid and reliable method by which to assess the impact of cough on the quality of life of chronic and acute coughers, and the efficacy of cough therapies in chronic coughers.

Section snippets

Patients

Three different groups of coughing subjects were prospectively studied. The first group comprised patients who had complained of cough for at least 8 weeks, who we referred to as chronic coughers. The second group comprised patients who had complained of cough for no more than 3 weeks, who we referred to as acute coughers. The third group comprised smokers who had a cough but were not complaining of cough. While chronic and acute coughers were seeking medical care because of their cough,

Characteristics of Study Groups

The group of chronic coughers were composed of 154 subjects (38 men and 116 women) with a mean (± SD) age of 54.3 ± 14.3 years (white, 149; African American, 4; and Hispanic, 1). They had complained of cough for an average of 76.6 ± 83.6 months. The group of acute coughers was composed of 30 subjects (14 men and 16 women) with a mean age of 52.3 ± 14.5 years (white, 30). They had complained of cough for < 3 weeks. The group of smokers was composed of 31 subjects (9 men and 22 women) with a mean

Discussion

By psychometrically analyzing CQLQ data from patients complaining of chronic and acute cough, and smokers with a cough who were not complaining of it, two major conclusions emerged.

First, the 28-item CQLQ qualifies as a cough-specific quality-of-life instrument4 that is reliable and valid for evaluating the impact of acute and chronic cough on adult patients. To our knowledge, the CQLQ is unique because there is no other cough-specific quality-of-life instrument. On the basis of FA of the data

The CQLQ

This instrument (The Cough Quality of Life Questionnaire ©2000 by Richard S. Irwin, Cynthia T. French, and Kenneth E. Fletcher; all rights reserved) is protected by copyright. No part of it may be modified, reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, or utilized without the prior written consent of the authors. (For information, please write to Dr. Irwin.)

References (11)

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Presented and published in part in abstract form at the annual meeting of the American Thoracic Society, May 10, 2000, in Toronto, ON, Canada.

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