[The use of Juniper's asthma quality of life questionnaire in Chinese asthmatics].
OBJECTIVE
One of the most important objectives in the management of asthma is to improve the quality of life of patients. We summarized our experience in using Juniper's asthma quality of life questionnaire (AQLQ) in Chinese asthmatics.


METHODS
Measurement instruments included self-administered AQLQ mandarin Chinese version and its standardized version. The data were from 210 AQLQ evaluations from 96 patients.


RESULTS
AQLQ and its four domains weakly correlated with forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV(1)) except the environment domain (r: 0.201 - 0.284). If the asthmatic patients were graded into 4 groups based on FEV(1), AQLQ and its four domains significantly detected the differences among the groups. The change of AQLQ, however, was not correlated with the change of FEV(1). The change of AQLQ domain of symptoms was correlated with the change of peak expiratory flow.


CONCLUSIONS
The Juniper's AQLQ performs well in Chinese asthmatics. AQLQ is correlated with pulmonary function and probably more sensitive and accurate than pulmonary function in the evaluation of disease severity.
Xu
Kai-feng
KF
Department of Pulmonary Medicine, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100730, China.
Luo
Xiao-chun
XC
Chen
Yan
Y
Zhang
Yi-jie
YJ
Li
Yan
Y
Hu
Bo
B
Lu
Wei-xuan
WX
Li
Long-yun
LY
Zhu
Yuan-jue
YJ
D000328:Adult; D001249:Asthma / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D005541:Forced Expiratory Volume; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011788:Quality of Life