QUALITY OF LIFE QUESTIONNAIRE RELATED TO NUTRITIONAL STATUS

Objective: To build and validate an instrument to measure the perceived quality of life in the nutritional status. Material and methods: By focal groups and interviews with nutrition experts, the dimensions with greater affectation were identified. After the judge test, the CaVEN questionnaire was defined. For its valuation a multicentric study was performed, participating 7 Spanish hospitals. The internal structure of the questionnaire was evaluated by explanatory factorial analysis. Reliability was tested using the Cronbach a coefficient and the validity of the criteria with the nutritional Gold Standards. Results: A questionnaire of 26 items with 6 health dimensions was built. It was applied to 68 patients that were valued in the Nutrition Units. The test KM was 0.756, showing a good accuracy in the Factorial Analysis. The existence of principal dimension of inertia was found (Bartlett p < 0.01). The 6 dimensions showed an accumulative variance of 77.670. It was observed a direct relationship in the Subjective Global Valuation and CaVEN (p < 0.01) and with the "Mini Nutritional Assessment Short" (p = 0.02), which was interpreted as the greater affectation of the nutritional status, the lower the quality of life detected by the CaVEN. Conclusions: The CaVEN questionnaire has proved a useful tool for assessing the quality of life related to nutritional status, even in groups with little nutritional alterations. (Nutr Hosp. 2012;27:1876-1885) DOI:10.3305/nh.2012.27.6.6025