Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies
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Focus Alternat Complement Ther©2005 Pharmaceutical Press
Focus Altern Complement Ther 2004; 9: 62
Researchers are finding the limitations of the currently available health-related quality of life instrument tool for outcome studies in Chinese medicine.
The aim of this study was to develop and validate a new Chinese quality of life instrument (ChQOL). It was developed as a generic measure of health-related quality of life for use in Chinese medicine and integrative medicine based on Chinese culture and the practice of Chinese medicine.
A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 193 patients and 80 healthy subjects. For convergent validity, the ChQOL was compared with the instrumental activities of WHOQOL-100 and SF-36.
We completed 273 interviews and 56 retests. The basic psychometric properties of the ChQOL were generally good. There were no ceiling and floor effects in scaling properties. The Cronbach alpha values for all facets and domains were acceptable. The domains with intra-class correlation coefficient above 0.83 were regarded as having good test–retest reliability. Correlation between the ChQOL and WHOQOL-100 or SF-36 was moderate, and higher in similar domains. All domain scores were statistically significant in discriminating between healthy subjects and patients’ so-called ‘known groups’. Compared against scales from other measures, including WHOQOL-BREF and SF-36, the instrument was the most responsive and sensitive for detecting clinical changes in clinical study for assessing congestive heart failure.
The ChQOL has satisfactory reliability and validity, and appears suitable for both clinical and research purposes.
This study was funded by the Research Grant of Hong Kong Baptist University and Guangzhou University of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
