Quality-of-life questionnaire for patients taking antihypertensive medication

This study was undertaken to construct a health-related quality-of-life (QO L) questionnaire for hypertensive patients from preexisting instruments and to validate its use in full form and in a shortened version. Two hundred s eventy hypertensive patients who were stable while taking antihypertensive medication (control group), changing medication because of side effects, or newly treated for hypertension were enrolled in a prospective, observation al, longitudinal study. At baseline and at months 1, 2, and 3, patients com pleted a questionnaire covering 7 domains of QOL. The criteria for evaluati ng the scales were internal consistency, test-retest reliability, construct validity, and responsiveness to change. Data were analyzed for the full qu estionnaire and the shortened version. Internal consistency and test-retest correlation values were 0.69 to 0.95 for scales in the full questionnaire and 0.57 to 0.92 in the shortened version. Construct validity was supported by statistically significant, positive correlations with a global QOL item for all but 1 scale in both versions. Responsiveness to change was support ed by increases in scores between baseline and month 3 for all scales in pa tients changing their medication because of side effects; scores remained u nchanged (on all but 1 scale) in the stable (control) group. By uniformly a pplying standard validation criteria to a set of preexisting instruments, w e created a new QOL questionnaire. Results were similar in both the full fo rm and shortened version.