BACKGROUND The University of Washington Quality of Life (UW-QOL) questionnaire is an English-language survey instrument used worldwide to assess the quality of life of patients with head and neck cancer. To be used in other cultures, such instruments require careful translation and psychometric validation in other languages. METHODS The translation and cultural adaptation of the questionnaire...

INTRODUCTION The Medical Outcomes Study short form 36 health survey (SF-36) is being increasingly used and recommended as a suitable measure of subjective health status. However, it is unlikely that any measure will be appropriate for all groups. We wished to determine the suitability of the SF-36 for assessing quality of life in older stroke patients. METHODS A screening questionnaire was us...

OBJECTIVE To validate a translated Italian version of the Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQ). METHODS The Italian version of the FIQ was administered to 50 patients affected by fibromyalgia (FM) (48 patients filled out the questionnaire again 10 days later) together with the Italian version of the Stanford Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ), the Medical Outcomes Survey Short Form-36 (...

INTRODUCTION Allergic rhinitis (AR) is a common airway disease. In order to study the prevalence of AR in high school students in Kerman, the Score for Allergic Rhinitis (SFAR) was used and the quality of life in the students affected by rhinitis was evaluated using the SF-36 questionnaire. MATERIALS AND METHODS This was a cross-sectional, analytical, descriptive study, based on the SFAR scal...

INTRODUCTION Patient-related outcome measures are crucial when assessing outcome from surgical intervention registers. The aim of this study was to analyse what factors affect Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) in patients undergoing cholecystectomy, and to assess the feasibility of SF-36 as a HRQoL instrument in a patient register. METHODS The SF-36 questionnaire was distributed to patie...

According to the 36-Item Short Form Health Survey questionnaire developers, a global measure of health-related quality of life such as the "SF-36 Total/Global/Overall Score" cannot be generated from the questionnaire. However, studies keep on reporting such measure. This study aimed to evaluate the frequency and to describe some characteristics of articles reporting the SF-36 Total/Global/Overa...

BACKGROUND Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) causes a wide range of clinical symptoms and potentially serious complications, but epidemiological data about GERD in China are limited. The aim of this pilot study was to develop and validate a methodology for the epidemiological study of GERD in China. METHODS Regionally stratified, randomized samples of Shanghai residents (n = 919) complet...

Methods: First, we constructed a questionnaire based on the descriptors collected from various sources in order to elicit university teachers’ views on the importance of these descriptors. A revised version was produced based on the feedback from the initial questionnaire survey. In order to further investigate what level or levels these remaining descriptors would fall into, 35 university teac...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effects of an early community based pulmonary rehabilitation programme after hospitalisation for acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). DESIGN A single centre, randomised controlled trial. SETTING An inner city, secondary and tertiary care hospital in London. PARTICIPANTS 42 patients admitted with an acute exacerbation of COPD. INT...

A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of low-level laser therapy (LLLT) in 90 subjects with chronic neck pain was conducted with the aim of determining the efficacy of 300 mW, 830 nm laser in the management of chronic neck pain. Subjects were randomized to receive a course of 14 treatments over 7 weeks with either active or sham laser to tender areas in the neck. The primary outc...