Postal administration of a Juniper mini-asthma quality of life questionnaire: a health improvement report

Abstract

Context:

The widely used Juniper Mini Asthma Quality of Life (MiniAQLQ) was devised and validated for self-completion under supervision. To calculate a score it is essential that all questions are completed correctly.

The problem:

When we administered the MiniAQLQ by post in a recent study, only 158/181 (87%) of responses were usable: 31 questions were omitted; 4 had double entries. The commonest error, in 12/181 (7%), was failure to complete Q15 (work-related problems)

Strategy for change:

We devised a patient instruction sheet on questionnaire completion and re-formatted the questionnaire to reduce the possibility of errors. Participants were sent the postal version a week before completing the questionnaires under supervision. The chi-square test was used to compare the rates of successful completion.

Effects of change:

96 participants were recruited. 93 postal questionnaires were returned: 83 (89%) were correctly completed. This was not significantly different to our previous study [Postal version vs Previous study: 83/93 vs 158/181: 2 = 0.22, p=0.679] 15 questions were omitted; there were no double entries. 8/93 (9%) did not complete Q15.

86 participants attended and completed the MiniAQLQ under supervision. There were no completion errors. [Supervised version vs postal version: 86/86 vs 83/93: 2 = 9.79, p=0.002] Including supervised attendance rate and postal return rate the overall usable response rates were similar. [Supervised vs Postal: 86/96 vs 83/96 2 = 0.44, p=0.505]

Conclusion:

Our instruction sheet did not reduce completion errors. However, the good return rate for postal administration achieved comparable overall usable response rates to the gold standard of supervised administration.