ABSTRACT
<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To assess the reliability, validity and responsiveness of the Chinese Quality of Life Instrument (ChQOL) in patients with chronic heart failure (CHF).</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Assessment on quality of life (QOL) of 39 CHF patients was performed in synchronous step adopting three generally used questionnaires the World Health Organization Quality of Life Assessment (WHOQOL-BREF), the Medical Outcomes Study Short Form 36-items Health Survey (SF-36), and the Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Questionnaire (MLHF), as well as the ChQOL respectively.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>ChQOL showed good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha > 0.7), with its theoretical structural model consistent with the three factors produced from factor analysis, and showed better criterion validity than that of WHOQOL-BREF, SF-36 and MLHF. The 4 weeks' follow-up visiting completed in 32 patients showed that according to patients' self-evaluation and the cardiac functional assessment by the doctors, the responsiveness of the ChQOL was better than that of the WHOQOL-BREF and SF-36, but slightly inferior to that of the MLHF.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>ChQOL showed good reliability, validity and responsiveness in assessing QOL of CHF patients.</p>