Lung Transplant Recipients Have New Health-Related Quality of Life Survey

A new 60-question Lung Transplant Quality of Life (LT-QOL) survey administered to lung transplant recipients better approximated health-related QOL than existing instruments, according to the results of a study published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

A pool of 126 candidate questions addressing items previously identified as important to people who had undergone lung transplant were reduced to 84 questions following interviews with 43 patients. Those 84 questions were then field tested in people who had undergone lung transplant and evaluated for internal consistency and construct validity. Questions that did not meet consistency and validity standards were removed. The survey was then given to people who had undergone lung transplant who did or did not have severe chronic lung allograft dysfunction and survey results were compared between groups.

Following field-testing of the 84 question preliminary survey, 60 questions were retained to develop the LT-QOL survey, which measures symptoms, health perceptions, functioning, and well-being. Survey results from individuals with severe chronic lung allograft dysfunction had worse QOL across 6 of the 10 LT-QOL scales compared with those without the condition.

The researchers wrote, “With the growing number of lung transplant recipients, many of whom are living longer, the LT-QOL represents a new tool to better measure the outcomes that matter most to patients.”

Reference

Singer JP, Soong A, Chen J, et al. Development and preliminary validation of the Lung Transplant Quality of Life (LT-QOL) survey [published online October 10, 2018]. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. doi:10.1164/rccm.201806-1198OC