title: RHINASTHMA-Adolescents: a new quality of life tool for patients with respiratory allergy.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Specific instruments for health-related quality of life (HRQoL) assessment in adolescents with rhinoconjunctivitis or asthma are available. None of them evaluates rhinitis and asthma together, although they often coexist. Our aim was to validate a HRQoL questionnaire for adolescents with rhinoconjunctivitis, asthma, or both.
  
  
  METHODS
  A pool of 38 items covering the main symptoms and problems related to respiratory allergy was generated based on literature review, clinical experience, and unstructured interviews to 54 adolescents. The items were randomly listed and presented to 88 consecutive outpatients (44 M; mean age 15.2 ± 3.1). Patients had to indicate which item they had experienced and, for each selected item, its importance on a four-point scale (1 = not at all; 4 = very much). Twelve items were excluded from the list, because of low importance. In the validation phase, 102 patients (54 M; mean age 15.36 ± 1.12) completed the KINDL, a generic HRQoL tool, and the new questionnaire (RHINASTHMA-Adolescents).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Factor analysis revealed a five-dimensional structure, which explained up to 71.23% of the total variance. Association between RHINASTHMA-Adolescents and KINDL scores was all in the expected direction. Internal consistency for the extracted factors was satisfactory: Upper Airways (0.81), Lower Airways (0.89), Emotions (0.85), Social Relationship (0.79), Daily life management (0.74). Reliability was good for all factors with a Pearson coefficient ranged from 0.91 to 0.99.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  RHINASTHMA-Adolescents is the first tool for evaluating HRQoL in patients with rhinitis and/or asthma. It provides a simple assessment and met the standards of validity, internal consistency, and reliability.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biomedicine and Molecular Immunology, National Research Council, Palermo, Italy; Department of Science for Health Promotion and Mother and Child, University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy.
authors.forename: Stefania
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: La Grutta
authors.forename: Massimo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Landi
authors.forename: Fulvio
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Braido
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Montalbano
authors.forename: Giuliana
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ferrante
authors.forename: Velia
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Malizia
authors.forename: Omar
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Fassio
authors.forename: Giorgio W
authors.initials: GW
authors.lastname: Canonica
authors.forename: Ilaria
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Baiardini
mesh_terms: D003231:Conjunctivitis / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011788:Quality of Life; D012130:Respiratory Hypersensitivity / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: adolescents; asthma; health-related quality of life; rhinitis