Reliability of the Edinburgh Claudication Questionnaire for Identifying Symptomatic PAD in General Practice

The Edinburgh Claudication Questionnaire (ECQ) was developed to help identify peripheral arterial disease (PAD) in the general population but has not been validated against diagnostic imaging methods such as Duplex Vascular Ultrasound Scanning (DUS). In present study, we assessed accuracy of ECQ for diagnosis using DUS. As part a National Institute Health Research funded project looking at novel methods, 250 patients were studied from 15 practices across North East England May 2015 and November 2016. Practices identified those with PAD their registers well age- sex-matched controls. All ECQs recorded by vascular specialist nurse. ultrasound scanning used reference standard occlusive PAD. had sensitivity 52.5% (95% CI: 42.3%-62.5%), specificity 87.1% 80.6%-92.0%), positive likelihood ratio 4.06 2.57-6.42), negative 0.55 0.44-0.68) compared relatively poor overall test isolation. It may be helpful ruling out or supplementary improve symptomatic General Practice.