The Wisconsin Upper Respiratory Symptom Survey is responsive, reliable, and valid

• Published in: Journal of clinical epidemiology Vol. 58; no. 6; pp. 609 - 617
• Main Authors: Barrett, Bruce, Brown, Roger, Mundt, Marlon, Safdar, Nasia, Dye, Leota, Maberry, Rob, Alt, Jennifer
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY Elsevier Inc 01-06-2005; Elsevier; Elsevier Limited
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Biological and medical sciences; Clinical significance; Cold remedies; Colleges & universities; Common cold; Common Cold - complications; Common Cold - diagnosis; Consent; Controlled trials; Correlation coefficient; Educational Status; Epidemiology; Evidence-based medicine; Factor analysis; Female; General aspects; Humans; Infections; Male; Medical sciences; Methodology; Middle Aged; Minimal important difference; Prospective Studies; Psychometrics; Public health. Hygiene; Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine; Quality of Life; Questionnaires; Reproducibility of Results; Sample Size; Severity of Illness Index; Symptom measurement; Treatment Outcome; Upper respiratory infection; Validation; Validity; Viral infections; United States > US; Wisconsin; Validation; Controlled trials; Questionnaires; Common cold; Psychometrics; Upper respiratory infection; Symptom measurement; Minimal important difference; Clinical significance; Evidence-based medicine; Quality of life; Nose disease; Questionnaire; Methodology; Upper respiratory tract; Epidemiology; ENT disease; Clinical trial; Public health; Human; Infection; Symptomatology; Survey; Surveillance; Viral disease
• ISSN: 0895-4356; 1878-5921
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2004.11.019

To assess reliability, responsiveness, importance to patients, and convergent validity for the Wisconsin Upper Respiratory Symptom Survey (WURSS-44) and to develop a short-form WURSS.
Community-based recruitment of participants with colds. Prospective monitoring from within 48 hours of first symptom until 2 days after end of cold. The WURSS-44 includes 1 global illness severity item, 32 symptom-based items, 10 functional quality-of-life items, and 1 item assessing global change. The SF-36, SF-8, and the Jackson cold scale were used as external comparators.
Participants included 104 women and 45 men, aged 18 to 80 years, self-reporting on 1,681 person-days of illness. Factor analysis suggested 10 dimensions, with reliability coefficients from 0.62 to 0.93. Comparing daily WURSS-44 to Jackson and SF-8 yielded Pearson correlation coefficients from 0.73 to 0.93, and from −0.60 to −0.84, respectively. Importance to patients and responsiveness assessment yielded a short version, the WURSS-21. Guyatt's responsiveness index was 0.54 for the SF-8, 0.61 for the Jackson, 0.71 for the WURSS-44, and 0.80 for the WURSS-21, suggesting that a two-armed trial would require 74 participants for the WURSS-21, 92 for the WURSS-44, 124 for the Jackson scale, and 156 for the SF-8.
The construct validity of WURSS-44 is supported by measures of reliability, responsiveness, importance to patients, and convergence. A shorter version, the WURSS-21, may be even more responsive.