Source: Annual Congress 2002 - Asthma in primary care - Assessment and control
Disease area: Airway diseases

Abstract

Aim:
To test the feasibility of using a postal 14-day symptom control questionnaire to classify subjects with respiratory symptoms according to severity as defined by the GINA guidelines.
Method:
Responders considered likely to have asthma/COPD were selected from a previous postal survey which used a modified ECRHQ. These subjects were sent a 14 day symptom control questionnaire. Answers were related to the GINA severity categorisation to classify respondents by severity. A method was devised to score questionnaire responses and derive a mean severity score from 1 to 4 corresponding to the GINA severity groups.
Results:
Of the 6828 responders to the first mailing (65.2% of the 10471 subjects who received questionnaires), 1054 (15.4%) were classified as likely asthma/COPD (4 or more positive responses to six key ECRHQ questions). Of these, 721 (68.4%) responded to the second questionnaire, of whom 567 (78.6%)could be classified by GINA severity.

Severity	Mean score	Number classified	%
Intermittent	1	300	52.9
Mild persistent	2	154	27.2
Moderate persistent	3	73	12.9
Severe persistent	4	40	7.1

Conclusions:
This study has shown the feasibility of using this short postal questionnaire to classify disease severity. This will enable relationships between healthcare utilisation, cost, health related quality of life and disease severity to be examined in future studies.

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Citations should be made in the following way:
M. L. Hazell, T. L. Frank, P. I. Frank (Manchester, United Kingdom). Classifying disease severity by postal questionnaire survey – use of the GINA guidelines. Eur Respir J 2002; 20: Suppl. 38, 588

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