[A new questionnaire for assessing the quality of life of patients with intermittent claudication]

Quality of life assessment is becoming increasingly relevant for evaluating the impact of disease and treatments and for deciding priorities when allocating resources. This is especially true in intermittent claudication where the goal of therapy is not the cure of the disease but rather to alleviate its symptoms and improve the patient's functional capabilities. At present, however, no generic scale fits all criteria for the ideal quality of life measuring in intermittent claudication.

We developed a questionnaire aimed at evaluating the specific limitations encountered by claudicants in the physical activity and in the social and emotional functioning. The present study evaluated the questionnaire for validity, reliability, and sensitivity to change, attributes considered to be essential for a questionnaire to be useful.

In 30 patients with intermittent claudication, the scores of the four sections of the questionnaire significantly correlated with the scores of the corresponding sections of the Nottingham Health Profile. This indicates that the questionnaire is valid. For each of the four subscales, the intraclass correlation coefficient was > 0.75, thus showing a high test re-test reliability. Also the internal consistency is strong with alpha coefficient ranging from 0.79 to 0.89. Finally, the questionnaire was administered to 9 patients before and 4 weeks after percutaneous transluminal angioplasty for claudication. After the intervention, the improvement in walking performance paralleled the improvement in quality of life. This indicates that the questionnaire is sensitive to change.

Our questionnaire appears to be a valid and reliable quality of life measure in intermittent claudication.