Item reduction phase
Subjects and methods. One hundred asthma clinicians,
representing 18 countries, were asked to participate.
They were clinicians who had served on international
asthma guidelines committees [1±3, 10], asthma clinicians
with measurement expertise and other opinion leaders
in asthma management. Each clinician was sent a
list of the 10 symptoms and asked both to score (5=
extremely important, 0=useless) and rank each symptom
for its importance in evaluating asthma control. Participants
were told that questions concerning airway calibre
and short-acting b2-agonists use would be included
in the final questionnaire. They were asked to select the
measure of airway calibre.
Results. Ninety-one clinicians returned the questionnaire.
Importance and ranking of the 10 symptoms are shown
in tables 1 and 2. Seventy-four per cent of respondents
preferred prebronchodilator forced expiratory volume in
one second (FEV1) % predicted as the measure of airway
calibre.
Asthma control questionnaire.. The ACQ includes the
five highest scoring symptoms, one question about b2-
agonist use and another about FEV1, the latter being
completed by the clinic staff. Patients recall their experiences
during the previous 7 days and respond to
each question using a 7-point scale (see Appendix). The
items are equally weighted and the ACQ score is the
mean of the 7 items and therefore between 0 (well controlled)
and 6 (extremely poorly controlled).