Respiratory Medicine
Volume 103, Issue 6 , Pages 932-934, June 2009

Patients may respond differently to paper and electronic versions of the same questionnaires

  • Elizabeth F. Juniper

      Affiliations

    • Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University, Ontario, Canada
    • Corresponding Author InformationCorresponding author. 20 Marcuse Fields, Bosham, West Sussex PO18 8NA, England, UK. Tel.: +44 (0) 1243 572124; fax: +44 (0) 1243 573680.
    • ,
  • John M. Langlands

      Affiliations

    • Langlands and Associates Consulting, Richmond, British Columbia, Canada
    • ,
  • Bridget A. Juniper

      Affiliations

    • QOL Technologies Ltd, Bosham, West Sussex, England, UK

Received 30 April 2008; accepted 23 October 2008. published online 25 November 2008.

Summary 

Aim

To adapt the Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire (AQLQ(S)), the Asthma Control Questionnaire (ACQ) and the Rhinoconjunctivitis Quality of Life Questionnaire (RQLQ(S)) for a personal digital assistant (Palm TX) and to examine the validity of the electronic versions by comparing them with the original paper versions.

Methods

84 adults with asthma and 32 with rhinitis were randomised to complete either the paper or the electronic version first. After 2h, they completed the other version.

Results

68 asthma and 27 rhinitis patients provided analysable data. For the AQLQ(S) and RQLQ(S) differences between paper and electronic were significant. Concordance between paper and electronic, evaluated using an intraclass correlation coefficient were: AQLQ=0.92, ACQ=0.90 and RQLQ=0.85. Concordance for the individual domains of the AQLQ and RQLQ ranged from 0.52 to 0.94. These levels of concordance did not reach the a priori defined requirement for validity.

Conclusions

The significant bias between paper and electronic versions and only modest concordance provides evidence that patients may respond differently to questionnaires in different formats and show that different formats must not be used interchangeably.

Keywords: Asthma, Electronic, Quality of life, Questionnaire, Rhinoconjunctivitis

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PII: S0954-6111(08)00385-5

doi:10.1016/j.rmed.2008.10.019

Respiratory Medicine
Volume 103, Issue 6 , Pages 932-934, June 2009

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