: Ferrans and Powers Quality of Life Index – Wound Version: a study about responsiveness

Introduction: Health Related Quality of Life (HRQOL) tools must be proven to accurately measure what they are supposed to. Psychometric properties, such as content validity, reliability and responsiveness, remain the key parameters used to assess HRQOL  instruments and need to be validated⁽¹⁾ Responsiveness is the ability of a questionnaire to detect clinically important changes over time, even if these changes are small⁽²⁾. Aim: To analyze responsiveness of Ferrans & Powers Quality of Life Index: Wound Version (FPQLI-WV) in patients with chronic wounds. Methods: This is a methodological prospective observational quantitative study conducted with 39 chronic wound patients undergoing treatment at two outpatient services. Patients were assessed three times using FPQLI-WV (baseline, 30 days and 60 days). The FPQLI-WV consists of 34 items distributed into 4 domains: health and functioning (HF), socio-economic (SE), psychological/spiritual (PS) and family (F). Responsiveness was studied through data distribution methods, using effect size as well as anchor-based methods, using global assessment of change, intensity of pain and wound healing. Results: Mean total scores of FPQLI-WV in the three assessments were 21.2, 23.1 and 24.2, respectively. Regarding responsiveness, small changes were detected at 30 days of treatment. This was confirmed at 60 days with even better results, with effect size of 0.86 for total score and 1.01 in the HF domain and 0.66 for SE domain, with p value <0.001 for all these scores. The minimally important difference obtained for the anchors in total quality of life score (QOL) was 2.0 for global assessment of change; 2.0 for pain and 2.4 for wound healing. Conclusions: The study showed that FPQLI-WV is responsive and able to detect change along time in patients with chronic wounds.