Reliability and validity of the Turkish version of the Chronic Heart Failure Questionnaire

Objective: Any disease specific Health Related Quality of Life Instrument for Chronic Heart Failure (CHF) is lacking in Turkey. The aim of this study is to adapt the Chronic Heart Failure Questionnaire (CHQ) into Turkish and probe the reliability and validity of this questionnaire. Methods: There are four dimensions of this 20 items scale. These dimensions are: dyspnea (5 items), fatigue (4 items), emotional status (7 items) and mastery (4 items). Response options were evaluated using a 7 -point Likert type scale. Quality of life (QOL) improves as the score increases. A total of 205 CHF patients hospitalized in the Department of Cardiology of Ege University hospital were enrolled in this study. The CHQ was applied to the patients twice with a wash-out period of 15 days. Confirmatory approach was used during the reliability and validity analysis. Cronbach alpha test was used for the reliability analysis. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used for the construct validity testing. NYHA classification for testing the criterion validity; SF-36 and WHOQOL-100 General Health and QOL facet for convergent validity testing of the Turkish version of the CHQ were used. Responsiveness to change was evaluated by Effect Size analysis by using test-retest data. Results: The range of Cronbach alpha values is 0.72-0.94. A considerable ceiling and floor effects were observed for the dyspnea dimension of the scale but no problematic items were observed for the entire scale. The CFA results supported the original four factors scale structure. Criterion and construct validity rebuts were satisfactory. Effect sizes obtained among dimensions of the CHQ were between 0.13 and 0.56. Conclusion: Overall results revealed that Turkish version of the CHQ is a reliable and valid instrument to be used for the evaluation of CHF patients.