Quality of Life and Fitness in Cystic Fibrosis
In cystic fibrosis (CF) patient care and in CF-related clinical trials, patient reported outcomes such as health-related quality of life (HRQoL) have been increasingly valued as relevant clinical parameter over the last two decades. HRQoL even allowed a prediction of survival in patients with CF.
HRQoL measures should assess – among other domains – daily functioning from a patient's perspective. Thus, one would expect a direct association of HRQoL with physical activity and physical fitness. In healthy people, a positive relationship has consistently been found between physical activity or aerobic fitness and HRQoL, indicating their significant contribution to perceived well-being. Research is scarce which has been done to explore the importance of their role in people with chronic conditions such as CF. The few existing studies showed moderate to strong direct correlations between HRQoL based on the non disease-specific Quality of Well-being Scale and objectively measured physical activity or peak oxygen uptake. However, the use of generic HRQoL questionnaires in CF may be questioned as they do not include disease-specific aspects.
The revised Cystic Fibrosis Questionnaire (CFQ-R) is a validated, multi-dimensional disease-specific measure to assess generic and disease-specific domains of HRQoL in CF that is available in several languages including English and German. To our knowledge, only one relatively small cross-sectional study has assessed the association between HRQoL-scales and aerobic fitness so far and found a positive relationship between VO2peak and several scales, which did not persist after adjusting for age and gender.
Based on the scarce cross-sectional and completely lacking longitudinal data in CF, the objective of this study was to determine the cross-sectional and longitudinal relationships between HRQoL as assessed by the CFQ-R, and physical activity and fitness in this population. Based on the studies using the Quality of Well-being Scale we hypothesised that there would be significant and positive associations between HRQoL scales and measures of physical activity and physical fitness cross-sectionally and longitudinally.
Background
In cystic fibrosis (CF) patient care and in CF-related clinical trials, patient reported outcomes such as health-related quality of life (HRQoL) have been increasingly valued as relevant clinical parameter over the last two decades. HRQoL even allowed a prediction of survival in patients with CF.
HRQoL measures should assess – among other domains – daily functioning from a patient's perspective. Thus, one would expect a direct association of HRQoL with physical activity and physical fitness. In healthy people, a positive relationship has consistently been found between physical activity or aerobic fitness and HRQoL, indicating their significant contribution to perceived well-being. Research is scarce which has been done to explore the importance of their role in people with chronic conditions such as CF. The few existing studies showed moderate to strong direct correlations between HRQoL based on the non disease-specific Quality of Well-being Scale and objectively measured physical activity or peak oxygen uptake. However, the use of generic HRQoL questionnaires in CF may be questioned as they do not include disease-specific aspects.
The revised Cystic Fibrosis Questionnaire (CFQ-R) is a validated, multi-dimensional disease-specific measure to assess generic and disease-specific domains of HRQoL in CF that is available in several languages including English and German. To our knowledge, only one relatively small cross-sectional study has assessed the association between HRQoL-scales and aerobic fitness so far and found a positive relationship between VO2peak and several scales, which did not persist after adjusting for age and gender.
Based on the scarce cross-sectional and completely lacking longitudinal data in CF, the objective of this study was to determine the cross-sectional and longitudinal relationships between HRQoL as assessed by the CFQ-R, and physical activity and fitness in this population. Based on the studies using the Quality of Well-being Scale we hypothesised that there would be significant and positive associations between HRQoL scales and measures of physical activity and physical fitness cross-sectionally and longitudinally.
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