A new tool to evaluate the impact of chronic urticaria on quality of life: chronic urticaria quality of life questionnaire (CU-QoL).
BACKGROUND
Health-related quality of Life in patients with chronic urticaria is evaluated by mean of generic instruments or questionnaire designed for skin diseases. No disease-specific tool is now available for the assessment of chronic urticaria impact from patients' viewpoint.


OBJECTIVE
The aim of our study is to develop and validate a new questionnaire specifically designed for the assessment of quality of life in chronic urticaria (Chronic Urticaria Quality of Life Questionnaire -- CU-Q(2)oL).


METHODS
In the development phase of CU-Q(2)oL an initial list of items of 37 items was compiled and given to 80 patients with chronic urticaria; the 23 most significant items were selected and converted into questions evaluating the answers on a Likert scale of five steps. The validation procedure involved 125 patients (86 F and 39 M) (age 42.17 +/- 9.24 years).


RESULTS
Following a statistical analysis, CU-Q(2)oL showed a six-dimensional structure and good levels of internal consistency for the extracted factors: Pruritus (0.79), Swelling (0.65), Impact on life activities (0.83), Sleep problems (0.77), Looks (0.83) and Limits (0.74). In stable conditions CU-Q(2)oL showed a good reliability, ranged between 0.64 and 0.92. Responsiveness to clinical changes was accomplished.


CONCLUSIONS
These results provide evidence that CU-Q(2)oL has specificity enough for being a valid tool for detecting the relative burden of CU on subjective wellbeing, and for obtaining a global evaluation both of CU impact and of treatments, taking into account the patient's point of view. The CU-Q(2)oL was easily and quickly filled up and well accepted by the patients.
Baiardini
I
I
Allergy and Respiratory Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy.
Pasquali
M
M
Braido
F
F
Fumagalli
F
F
Guerra
L
L
Compalati
E
E
Braga
M
M
Lombardi
C
C
Fassio
O
O
Canonica
G W
GW
D000328:Adult; D002908:Chronic Disease; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011788:Quality of Life; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards; D014581:Urticaria / Q000503:physiopathology*