GASTROINTESTINAL QUALITY-OF-LIFE INDEX - DEVELOPMENT, VALIDATION AND APPLICATION OF A NEW INSTRUMENT

At present, an instrument for measuring the quality of life, specifica lly for patients with gastrointestinal disease, is not available. A ne w instrument for gastrointestinal disorders that is system-specific ha s been developed in three phases. In the first phase, questions were c ollated and then tested on 70 patients with gastrointestinal diseases and those that worked well were retained. In the second phase, the que stions were modified and tested on 204 patients and the results verifi ed by international experts. The instrument was also validated against other generic measures of quality of life. During the third phase, th e instrument was validated with 168 normal individuals. Reproducibilit y was tested on 25 patients with stable gastrointestinal disease and r esponsiveness was tested on 194 patients undergoing laparoscopic chole cystectomy. The result is a bilingual (German and English) questionnai re containing 36 questions each with five response categories. The res ponses to questions are summed to give a numerical score. It is conclu ded that the Gastrointestinal Quality of Life Index (GIQLI) is ready t o be used in clinical practice and research.