Prevalence of chronic rhinosinusitis in Sao Paulo.

INTRODUCTION: Studies designed to investigate chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) epidemiology play an important role to assess population`s distribution and risk factors to result in the development and promotion of public health policies. METHOD: This study design is a survey carried out with a complex two-stage cluster sampling plan. Personal interviews were carried out with 2,003 individuals. The questionnaire included the epidemiological criteria for CRS. Demographic data, history of physician-diagnosed respiratory diseases (asthma, sinusitis, rhinitis), smoking, family income, educational attainment, and household characteristics were also evaluated. RESULTS: The overall response rate was 93.9% of the households. Mean age was 39.8 +- 21 years; 45.33% were male. The overall prevalence of CRS in the city of Sao Paulo was 5.51%. We found a significant association between diagnosis of CRS and diagnosis of asthma and CRS and diagnosis of rhinitis and a significant association between presence of CRS and belonging to the low-income subgroup. CONCLUSION: The municipality of Sao Paulo has an urban population of 11 million. According to the present study, the prevalence of CRS is 5.51%, which represents more than 500,000 individuals affected by this condition in the city.

Cross-cultural adaptation and validation of a quality of life questionnaire: the Nasal Obstruction Symptom Evaluation questionnaire.

BACKGROUND: The Nasal Obstruction Symptom Evaluation (NOSE) instrument is a disease-specific questionnaire for assessing the outcome of an intervention in nasal obstruction in trials. This instrument is only available in the English language and cross-culturally valid questionnaires are very important for all research, including nasal obstruction. The aim of the current study was to reproduce the cross-cultural adaptation process for the NOSE questionnaire in the Portuguese language (NOSE-p). METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL: Cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the instrument were divided into two stages. Stage 1 involved four bilingual professionals, an expert committee and the author of the original instrument. In Stage 2, the NOSE-p was tested on 33 patients undergoing septoplasty for internal consistency, test-retest reliability, construct validity, discriminant validity, criterion validity, and response sensitivity. RESULTS: The cross-cultural adaptation process was completed and the NOSE-p was demonstrated to be a valid instrument with satisfactory construct validity. It showed an adequate internal consistency reliability and adequate test-retest reliability. It could discriminate between patients with and without nasal obstruction and it has a high response sensitivity to change. CONCLUSIONS: The cross-cultural adaptation and validation process demonstrated to be valid and the NOSE-p proved to be applicable in Brazil.