Developments And Comparisions Of The Quality Of Life Instrument For Chronic Diseases:Chronic Prostatitis(QLICD-CP) And Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (QLICD-BPH)

Objective To develop and validate the Quality of Life Instruments for Chronic Disease:chronic prostatitis (QLICD-CP) and benign prostatic hyperplasia (QLICD-BPH), and to compare both of them.Methods Based on the modular approach (a general module plus specific modules) and Chinese culture, and also the programmed decision procedure including nominal group and focus group discussion, in-depth interview, pilot tests, pre-tests and the statistical procedures for item selection, the specific QOL instrument for patients with chronic prostatitis QLICD-CP and benign prostatic hyperplasia QLICD-BPH have been developed and validated respectively. The Chinese version of SF-36was also used to provide data for assessing the criterion-related validity for the QLICD-CP scale and the QLICD-BPH scale. In addition, the contents, constructs and psychometric properties (validity, reliability, responsiveness) of the QLICD-CP, QLICD-BPH and also SF-36were compared. The statistic methods used in this study include statistic description, multiple regression,t-test and exploratory factor analysis.Results1. The QLICD-CP was developed including29items of the general module QLICD-GM and16items of specific module for chronic prostatitis. And the QLICD-BPH including29items of the general module QLICD-GM and16items of specific module for benign prostatic hyperplasia was also developed.2. Results on psychometrics of QLICD-CP and QLICD-BPH showed test-retest-reliability of the QLICD-BPH scale is0.95, Cronbach's Alpha of QLICD-CP scale and QLICD-BPH scale are0.93and0.91respectively. Correlation and factor analysis showed good construct validity, and also good responsiveness.3. Regard to comparisons of two scales, both of QLICD-CP scale and QLICD-BPH scale reflected the contents of the quality of life with good reliability, validity and responsiveness. The QLICD-CP scale and QLICD-BPH scale showed better responsiveness than that of the SF-36scale.Conclusion Both instruments of QLICD-CP scale and QLICD-BPH scale have good validity, reliability and responsiveness, and can be used to measure QOL for Chinese patients with chronic prostatitis or benign prostatic hyperplasia. Although psychometrics of the Chinese version of QLICD-CP scale and QLICD-BPH scale are similar, they are not interchangeable.