Simplification and Validation of Leicester Cough Questionnaire in Mandarin-Chinese

Abstract

Background and objective Patients often have cough after lung surgery, and there is a lack of tools to specifically assess postoperative coughs. LCQ-MC (Leicester Cough Questionnaire in Mandarin-Chinese) was revised and validated to explore its value on clinical application. Methods A total of 250 patients undergone the lung operation of single medical team, from September 2015 to December 2016 in the Department ofThoracic Surgery, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, were investigated. Among them, 121 patients completed LCQ-MC and 129 patients completed simplified LCQ-MC, we verified the reliability and validity. Results The new questionnaire was not changed in terms of content layout and the scoring method of LCQ-MC, consisting of 12 items and three domains (physical, psychological and social). There was good content validity (S-CVI/UA=0.83). Concurrent validity was high when the simplified LCQ-MC was compared with daytime cough symptom score (r=-0.578, P<0.001). There was a moderate relationship with response to night-time cough symptom score (r=-0.358, P=-0.004) and SF36 total score (r=0.346, P=0.030), and weak relationship with the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale total score (r=-0.241, P=0.046). Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of simplified LCQ-CM total and three domains varied between 0.79 and 0.89. One week apart test-retest reliability (n=30) was high (r=0.88-0.96). Conclusion Simplified LCQ-MC has good reliability and validity that can be used for clinical applications.

Keywords

• Video-assisted thoracic surgery
• Leicester Cough Questionnaire in Mandarin-Chinese (LCQ-MC)
• Cough
• Pulmonary disease
• Reliability
• Validity