Background: The use of currently validated instruments to measure the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of patients with osteoporosis in daily clinical practice is not feasible due to the length of time needed to be administered. The objective of the present study was to develop a new, short questionnaire for women with vertebral fractures due to osteoporosis.
Patients and methods: The administration of two disease-specific questionnaires (OQLQ and QUALEFFO) and the generic SF-36 questionnaire to 338 women with vertebral fracture due to osteoporosis allowed the development of a new questionnaire in 5 stages: i) search for a common structure in both questionnaires; ii) independent reduction of items in the OQLQ and QUALEFFO using Rasch analysis; iii) aggregation of remaining items in both questionnaires into distinct dimensions; iv) quantitative reduction of redundant items in aggregated dimensions; v) qualitative item reduction in aggregated scales.
Results: The methodology of the study allowed the development of a 16 item questionnaire (ECOS-16), with 4 items taken from the OQLQ and 12 from the QUALEFFO. The items are grouped into 4 categories: physical functioning (5 items), illness-related fears (2 items), psychosocial functioning (4 items), and pain (5 items).
Conclusions: The ECOS-16 will be a promising alternative, once it is validated, to generic questionnaires and to the specific questionnaires from which its content was extracted, particularly for patients with osteoporotic vertebral fracture in daily clinical practice.