Prediction of airway reactivity from responses to a standardized respiratory symptom questionnaire

A standardized respiratory symptom questionnaire was administered to 200 male insulators who then underwent inhalational bronchial challenge to measure their airway reactivity. The results were analyzed to determine the value of questionnaire information in predicting airway reactivity measured objectively. Questionnaire information was grouped according to topic, scored according to severity, and then combined to create several airway reactivity indices by stepwise multivariate analysis. The final index selected for testing contained information on a history of "asthma," "wheeze," "episodes of cough with sputum," and "pneumonia." It had a sensitivity ranging from 5% to 67% and positive predictive value from 67% to 28% depending on the cutoff point chosen as indicative of increased airway reactivity. These results indicate that questionnaire information is not adequate for discriminating between those with and those without increased airway reactivity in population screening.