Chest
Volume 114, Issue 4, October 1998, Pages 998-1007
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Clinical Investigations: Asthma
Integrating Patient Preferences Into Health Outcomes Assessment: The Multiattribute Asthma Symptom Utility Index

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Study objective

To develop and evaluate a brief, easy-to-administer symptom assessment scale for use as a preference-based outcome measure in clinical trials and cost-effectiveness studies in asthma.

Design

Cross-sectional survey with 2-week reproducibility assessment.

Setting

Ambulatory care: university asthma and allergy center.

Participants

One hundred sixty-one adults with asthma, 59% female, mean age 35 ± 11 years. Mean FEV1 percent predicted was 86 ± 17%.

Interventions

The 11-item Asthma Symptom Utility Index (ASUI).

Measurements and results

Mean ASUI score for this sample was 0.71 ± 0.23, with a range from 0.02 to 1.0. The ASUI was reproducible (intraclass correlation coefficient = 0.74) and able to distinguish patients known to differ on disease severity according to clinician ratings (p < 0.001) and by an asthma disease severity scale score (p < 0.001). The instrument was also significantly correlated with FEV1 percent predicted (r = 0.27, p < 0.001), the Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire (r = 0.77, p < 0.001), and the Health Utilities Index Mark 2 (r = 0.36, p < 0.001).

Conclusion

The results of this study support the reliability and validity of the ASUI, suggesting it will be a useful, complementary patient outcome measure for clinical trials and cost-effectiveness studies comparing treatment alternatives for persons with asthma.

Key words

asthma-related symptoms
health preferences
quality of life
patient outcomes

Cited by (0)

This study was funded by SmithKline Beecham and in part by NIH grant HL49545