Validity and Reliability of Seattle Angina Questionnaire Japanese Version in Patients With Coronary Artery Disease

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to evaluate the validity and reliability of the Seattle Angina Questionnaire, Japanese version (SAQ-J) as a disease-specific health outcome scale in patients with coronary artery disease. METHODS: Patients with coronary artery disease were recruited from a university hospital in Tokyo. The patients completed self-administered questionnaires, and medical information was obtained from the subjects' medical records. Face validity, concurrent validity evaluated using Short Form 36 (SF-36), known group differences, internal consistency, and test-retest reliability were statistically analyzed. RESULTS: A total of 354 patients gave informed consent, and 331 of them responded (93.5%). The concurrent validity was mostly supported by the pattern of association between SAQ-J and SF-36. The patients without chest symptoms showed significantly higher SAQ-J scores than did the patients with chest symptoms in 4 domains. Cronbach's alpha ranged from .51 to .96, meaning that internal consistency was confirmed to a certain extent. The intraclass correlation coefficient of most domains was higher than the recommended value of 0.70. The weighted kappa ranged from .24 to .57, and it was greater than .4 for 14 of the 19 items. CONCLUSIONS: The SAQ-J could be a valid and reliable disease-specific scale in some part for measuring health outcomes in patients with coronary artery disease, and requires cautious use.

Teaching Evaluation at the Faculty of Medicine, Tottori University: Analysis of Scores and Free Comments over a 3-Year Period / 医学教育

Teaching evaluations have been performed since 2002 in the Faculty of Medicine, Tottori University. The effects of evaluations over a 3-year period were assessed, and free comments obtained from students were analyzed with the textmining method to identify factors affecting students' satisfaction. A total of 566 lectures given in undergraduate courses were evaluated, and 33, 751 questionnaires were collected for a recovery rate of 74%. The collected questionnaires included 2495 free comments. Each free comment was parsed word by word, and the nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs were selected as key words. The scores for almost all questions on the questionnaire for the 2003 school year were significantly higher than those for the 2002 school year. However, no difference was found between the scores of the 2003 and 2004 school years. Analysis of the free comments suggested that a well-understood lecture improves student satisfaction and that teaching materials, such as handouts and slides, play an important role in the positive evaluation of lectures. The percentage of lectures receiving poor evaluations (scores less than 3) decreased yearly. This finding suggests that teaching evaluations are effective in helping faculty members with low scores to improve their lectures.

Computer Literacy Education by Computer-assisted Instruction with Streaming Video / 医学教育

The computer experiences of students vary greatly. To help students achieve practical computer literacy while keeping them motivated, we tried computer-assisted instruction with streaming video for the Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel computer software programs. Each student could access a server computer that stored streaming videos and learn how to use the software while watching videos on the computer display. By leaving the explanation of basic operations to the computer, we teachers were could concentrate on the students' more complex questions. Most students gladly participated in our trial study. However, we must keep in mind that some students don't learn as quickly as others and that the quality of the streaming video needs to be improved. This method is useful when a few teachers must teach practical computer literacy to many students.