Associação entre diferentes instrumentos de qualidade de vida relacionada à saúde em indivíduos com insuficiência cardíaca e indivíduos com DPOC em condições de estabilidade

Abstract

Individuals with heart failure (HF), as well as those with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), share similar chronic symptoms that, as the disease progresses, can lead to functional limitation, worse quality of life and worse prognosis. The aim of this study was to verify the association between measures of health-related quality of life (HRQoL), based on generic and disease-specific instruments, in individuals with HF and in those with COPD. This is a cross-sectional study which included two groups of participants: 1) individuals with stable HF and; 2) individuals with stable COPD. The generic HRQoL instrument used in this study was the Medical Outcomes Study 36-item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36), completed by both groups. The disease-specific HRQoL instruments used were the Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Questionnaire (MLHFQ), in individuals with HF, and the Saint George's Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ), in individuals with COPD. All instruments were answered during interviews by trained researchers. In total, 122 participants were included (62 with HF and 60 with COPD), 49% were men with a median age of 62 (52 - 69) years. Higher scores in the SF-36’s physical component summary were observed in individuals with HF than in those with COPD [45 (39 - 51) vs. 30 (25 - 36) points, respectively; p<0.001]. Stronger correlations were observed between generic and disease-specific HRQoL instruments among individuals with HF (48≤r≤71) when compared to the correlations observed in individuals with COPD (33≤r≤57). Significant differences were found in the comparison of the SF-36 component summaries between groups of individuals stratified by the MLHFQ (p<0.05 for all analyses), but not by SGRQ scores. There seems to be a stronger association between generic and disease-specific HRQoL measures in the group of individuals with HF when compared to the group of individuals with COPD. This suggests that, in HF, the two instruments seem to reflect in a similar way the HRQoL of individuals, with no need to use the two instruments together.