St. George's Respiratory Questionnaire

Name of Questionnaire

St. George's Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ)

Description

Disease-specific instrument designed to measure impact on overall health, daily life, and perceived well-being. Developed for use by patients with fixed and reversible airway obstruction.

Developer

P Jones, F Quirk, C Baveystock, P Littlejohns

Address

P Jones
Division of Physiological Medicine
St. George's Hospital Medical School
London SW17 Ore
United Kingdom

E-mail

pjones@sghms.ac.uk

Cost & availability

Contribution to the St. George's Research Fund is requested from commercial organizations using the instrument. Permission should be obtained from the authors.

Administration

Self, face-to-face or telephone interview ⁴

Time to complete

10 minutes

Number of items

76

Domains & categories

3 sections and total score

Name of categories/domains

Symptoms (frequency & severity); Activity (activities that cause or are limited by breathlessness); Impacts (social functioning, psychological disturbances resulting from airways disease).

Scaling of items

• Section I (Symptoms): 5-point Likert
• Sections II (Activity) and III (Impacts): Dichotomous (yes/no)

Scoring

Scores for each section and a total score; each item is weighted based on empirical data. Scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating poor health.

Reliability

Validity

Significant correlations between total score and presence of cough, sputum, and wheeze ² . Significant correlations between other measures of disease activity (FEV1, FVC, SaO2 at rest, 6-MWD, MRC dyspnea grade, anxiety score, depression score, SIP total score, SIP physical domain, SIP psychosocial domain) and symptom, activity, and impact domains ² .

Responsiveness

Reported ³ ; Based on empirical data and interviews with patients, a mean change score of 4 units is associated with slightly efficacious treatment, 8 units for moderately efficacious change and 12 units for very efficacious treatment ^{1 , 3} .

Research use

Reported, including clinical trial ^{3 , 8} Also used in Bronchiectasis ¹²

Clinical use

Not reported

Language

Original: English (U.K.)

Translations: Finnish, Dutch, Italian, Thai, Japanese - International Quality of Life Assessment (IQOLA) process used in translation⁷. Danish, French, Portugese³, Spanish⁹, Swedish¹⁰ , American English (SGRQ-A)¹¹, Polish¹³, Chinese¹⁴

References

1. Jones PW, Quirk FH, Baveystock CM. The St. George's Respiratory Questionnaire. Resp Med 1991;85(suppl):25-31.
2. Jones PW, Quirk FH, Baveystock CM, Littlejohns P. A self-complete measure of health status for chronic airflow limitation. Am Rev Respir Dis 1992;145;1321-1327.
3. Jones PW and the Nedocromil Sodium Quality of Life Study Group. Quality of life, symptoms, and pulmonary function in asthma: long-term treatment with nedocromil sodium examined in a controlled multicentre trial. Eur Respir J 1994;7:55-62.
4. Anie KA, Jones PW. Hilton SR, Anderson HR. A computer-assisted telephone interview technique for assessment of asthma morbidity and drug use in adult asthma. J Clin Epidemiol 1996;49(6):653-656.
5. Quirk FH, Jones PW. Patients' perception of distress due to symptoms and effects of asthma on daily living and an investigation of possible influential factors. Clin Sci 1990;79:17-21.
6. Quirk FH, Baveystock CM, Wilson RC, Jones PW. Influence of demographic and disease-related factors on the degree of distress associated with symptoms and restrictions on daily living due to asthma in six countries. Eur Respir J 1991;4:167-171.
7. Jones PW, Bosh TK. Quality of life changes in COPD patients treated with salmeterol. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 1997;155;1283-1289.
8. Lahdensuo A, Haahtela T, Herrala J, et al. Randomised comparison of guided self management and traditional treatment of asthma over one year. BMJ 1996;312:748-752.
9. Ferrer M, Alonso J, Prieto L, et al. Validity and reliability of the St George's Respiratory Questionaire after adaptation to a different language and culture: the Spanish examaple. Eur Respir J 1996;9(6):1160-6.
10. Engstrom C-P, Persson L-O, Larsson S, Sullivan M. Reliability and validity of a Swedish version of the St. George's Respiratory Questionnaire. Eur Respir J 1998;11(1):61-6.
11. Barr JT, Schumacher GE, Freeman S, LeMoine M, Bakst AW, Jones PW. American translation, modification, and validation of the St. George's Respiratory Questionnaire. Clinical Therapeutics 2000;22(9):1121-1145.
12. Wilson CB, Jones PW, O'Leary CJ, Cole PJ, Wilson R. Validation of the St. George's Respiratory Questionnaire in bronchiectasis. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 1997;156:536-541.
13. Kuzniar T, Patkowski J, Liebhart J, Wytrychowski K, Dobek R, Slusarz R, Liebhart E - [Validation of the Polish version of St George's Respiratory Questionnaire in patients with asthma] - Pneumonol Alergol Pol 1999:67(11-12):497-503).
14. Wang KY, Chiang CH, et al. Psychometric assessment of the Chinese language version of the St. George's Respiratory Questionnaire in Taiwanese patients with bronchial asthma. J Formos Med Assoc 2001;100(7): 455-60.

Date of information

April 2002