Measures
Illness perceptions
To assess the various dimensions of illness perceptions,
the Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire (B-IPQ)
was used. This brief version was used because it is more
suitable, less taxing, much quicker and much easier to
complete than the long version IPQ-R. The B-IPQ is a self-administered scale consisting of eight items on
an 11-point scale (range 0–10). Each item represents a
dimension of the CSM (Figure 1). Five items assess cognitive representations of the illness, and three items assess the emotional representation of the illness. The
dimensions and implications of the scores are depicted
in Table 1. A higher score on these dimensions implies
that patients believed in a stronger influence of illness
upon daily life (“consequences”), held stronger belief in a
chronic time course (“timeline”), had greater perceived
personal control of illness (“personal control”), had
greater perceived control of the disease by treatment
(“treatment control”), and had a greater experience of severe symptoms as a result of the illness (“identity”). Two of the items assess emotional representations of illness. A higher score implies that patients had greater feelings of concern about the illness (“concern”) and a stronger emotional response to the illness (“emotional response”). One questionnaire item assesses “comprehensibility”; a higher score implies a better understanding of the illness. One open-ended item assesses causal beliefs about COPD. This item asks patients to list their views on the three most important causal factors of their illness.