ABS53: Does the clinical COPD questionnaire (CCQ) score reflect reality in individual patients?

Abstract

Patient Reported Outcome(PRO) measures are important in assessing effectiveness in clinical trials. The use of PROs could also provide valuable information for health care professionals in routine clinical practice. The Clinical COPD Questionnaire (CCQ) is a validated 10-item PRO assessing the health status of COPD patients (Health Qual Life Outcomes. 2003 Apr 28;1(1):13). To assess the validity of the CCQ on individual level. COPD patients visiting two out-patient clinics completed the CCQ before consulting their pulmonologist. These CCQ scores were compared with (i) the CCQ score completed about the patient by the blinded pulmonologist directly after the consultation in the first half of the patients and (ii) data from a semi-structured interview with the patient. The interviews were transcribed, analyzed and converted to CCQ scores by the researcher. Differences in CCQ scores between patient and (i) doctor and (ii) interview were analyzed. The number of differences exceeding the Minimal Clinically Important Differences (MCID) of the CCQ (0.4) were counted. 44 patients (mean age 66 (∓7) yr; 72% male; FEV1 % predicted 44 (∓14); mean total CCQ score 2.2 (∓0.9)) were included. The correlation between the doctor vs patient CCQ score (method i) was r = 0.87, n = 22. The correlation between the interview and the patient (method ii) CCQ score was r = 0.93, n = 44. The number (%) of times the difference in total CCQ score exceeded the MCID was 8 (36) and 4 (9) respectively between patient and doctor and patient and interview. The interviews suggest that differences in scores between interview based CCQ score and patient CCQ score can be explained by patients’ cognitive level and multiple co-morbidity. The CCQ can be trusted in routine clinical practice to assess COPD related health status, because of the high agreement between measurements, and the low number of differences exceeding the MCID between CCQ scores based on the interview and completed by the patient. Conflict of interest and funding None.