Validation of Peripheral Artery Disease Quality of Life Questionnaire (PADQoL) and Measuring Disease-specific Quality of Life among Patients with Peripheral Artery Disease

Abstract

Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) represents a significant burden for both those affected and their environment as well as for society. The thesis provides insight into the epidemiology of PAD with special focus on prevalence, mortality and years of life lost (YLL) from an international and national perspective with special emphasis on the Hungarian situation. The authors’ aim was to provide a novel disease-specific questionnaire for the assessment and evaluation of quality of life among Hungarian patients living with the disease, therefore, subsequent chapters of the thesis discuss the linguistic validation and cross-cultural adaptation process of PADQoL disease-specific health-related quality of life (HRQoL) questionnaire as performed according to an international protocol including the translation process, challenging items and results of the pilot testing. Authors investigated health-related quality of life among 129 PAD patients via a cross-sectional study using the previously validated Hungarian PADQoL which revealed the impact of PAD on multiple aspects of physical, and psycho-social well-being. Advanced-stage PAD was associated with worse quality of life, highlighting the considerable PAD-related disease burden.