title: Evaluation of the Persian Transcript of the COPD Assessment Test in the Measurement of COPD Health Status in Iranian COPD Patients.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is a completely irreversible obstructive airway disease. The COPD assessment test (CAT) is one of the standard methods for the clinical assessment of the disease, which is translated into Persian. This study investigated the reliability of the test and its relationship with the severity of the disease.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this cross-sectional study, 120 patients filled out the Persian transcript of the test. After two weeks, the patients filled out the CAT test again. Obstruction severity was determined for all the patients using spirometry, and the patients were categorized into four groups according to the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease criteria. The relationship between the test scores and the disease severity wan validated.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The mean age of the patients was 51.5 years. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient of the Persian transcript of the test was 0.872 in the first time, and 0.885 in the second time. Intragroup reliability, test re-test and intragroup correlations were significant for all the questions (<0.001). The relationship between the test mean score and obstruction severity was significant, and the correlation between disease categorization in accordance with obstruction severity and categorization according to the test score was significant as well.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The Persian transcript of the assessment test for COPD was reliable and is directly related to the disease severity according to airflow limitation.
authors.affiliation: School of Medicine, Lorestan University of Medical Sciences, Khorramabad, Iran. azargon.a@lums.ac.ir.
authors.forename: Alireza
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Azargon
authors.forename: Mohammadreza
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gholami
authors.forename: Ali
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Farhadi
authors.forename: Maryam
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hadi Chegni
authors.forename: Abolfazl
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Zendedel
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007492:Iran; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D029424:Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive / Q000503:physiopathology*; D011788:Quality of Life; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012129:Respiratory Function Tests; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*