Standardization of Korean respiratory symptom questionnaire

During the 1960s and 1970s, the British Medical Research Council and the American Thoracic Society developed respiratory symptom questionnaires mainly focusing on early detection of chronic bronchitis. Several shortcomings have been cited as deficiencies in these questionnaires, such as no account of subjective perception about air pollution. In this study, the Korean respiratory symptom questionnaire was developed, and the influence of subjective perception on the reporting of symptoms was examined. Study subjects were sampled based on age and sex, and in total, 213 participated from two institutes. The questionnaire was distributed twice (test and retest) and the results were compared with the physicians' diagnosis to assess reproducibility and validity. Intra- and extrasubject factors were examined with logistic regression as to whether they effect the responses of the questionnaire. When the difference in subjective perception was analyzed, the symptom report of those who perceived neighboring air as bad quality showed higher sensitivity and lower specificity than those with positive perception. However, when disease status and difference in institute were analyzed together in the logistic regression analysis, subjective perception became nonsignificant. These results suggest that subjective perception about air quality can be ignored in the development of respiratory symptom questionnaires.