ABSTRACT
Objective To assess the psychometric properties of the Chinese Heartburn Version of Quality of Life in Reflux and Dyspepsia Questionnaire (QOLRAD) in patients with gastroesophageal reflux disease.Methods 130 patients with symptoms of heartburn completed the Chinese version of QOLRAD,the Short-Form-36 (SF-36).30 of them received proton pump inhibitors (PPI) for 8 weeks,which was used to test responsiveness of the Chinese heartburn version of QOLRAD.Results The Chinese version of QOLRAD had acceptable internal consistency.The overall Cronbach's alpha was 0.89 and the internal consistency of dimensions ranged from 0.70～0.90.Content validity index (CVI) was 0.82.Confirmation factor analysis revealed a 5 factor solutions accounting for 62.02％ and most of items in their dimensions had acceptable loads (＞0.4).There was acceptable concurrent validity with correlations between the Chinese heartburn version of QOLRAD and Short Form-36 health survey ranging from 0.172～0.613.As to responsiveness,after therapy of PPI for 8 weeks,except the dimension of sleep disturbance,scores for dimensions of vitality,food/drink problems,physical/social functioning,emotional distress had significant changes.Conclusions The Chinese version of QOLRAD has a good reliability,validity and responsiveness to therapy,which can be used to assess the quality of life in patients with gastroesophageal reflux disease.