Department of Dermatology, Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Australas J Dermatol. 2020 May;61(2):152-157. doi: 10.1111/ajd.13235. Epub 2020 Jan 27.
BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Vulvar disease leads to significant disease burden and reduced quality of life (QOL). However, vulvar disease-specific instruments to measure QOL are lacking. We developed the Vulvar Quality of Life Index (VQLI) to comprehensively and reproducibly assess symptomatic, psychosexual and physical aspects of vulvar disease.
The VQLI was inferred from a review of the literature regarding QOL of vulvar disease, and responses from a cohort of patients attending specialist clinics. Seven domains and a 15-item questionnaire were developed. This was tested and optimised prior to validation on 248 women, using a control group as a baseline. The VQLI was further tested on 157 women, and the total VQLI score was compared to a self-determined Likert global score on how vulvar disease had impacted their overall health.
The VQLI had excellent internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha, 0.93), and test-retest reliability showed that 9/15 questions had a substantial weighted kappa value of 0.5 or above, with good intraclass correlation coefficient (0.88; CI 0.8-0.93). Spearman correlations were consistently positive. Further testing on 157 women demonstrated a significant relationship between the total VQLI score and the effect of vulvar disease on overall health, with high levels of the impact of vulvar disease on overall health associated with high total VQLI score (P < 0.001).
The VQLI is a validated, fast and reliable tool to measure the global impact of vulvar disease on QOL and can be used to monitor response to treatment or in a research setting.
背景/目的：外阴疾病会导致严重的疾病负担和生活质量（QOL）下降。然而，目前缺乏专门用于测量外阴疾病 QOL 的工具。我们开发了外阴生活质量指数（VQLI），以全面、可重复地评估外阴疾病的症状、心理性和身体性方面。
VQLI 是通过对有关外阴疾病 QOL 的文献回顾以及参加专科诊所的患者的反应推断得出的。开发了七个领域和一个 15 项问卷。在对 248 名女性进行测试和优化之前，使用对照组作为基线进行了验证。VQLI 进一步在 157 名女性中进行了测试，并将总 VQLI 评分与她们对外阴疾病如何影响整体健康的自我决定的 Likert 总体评分进行了比较。
VQLI 具有极好的内部一致性（Cronbach's alpha，0.93），测试-重测可靠性表明，9/15 个问题具有 0.5 或更高的实质性加权 Kappa 值，具有良好的组内相关系数（0.88；CI 0.8-0.93）。Spearman 相关性始终为正。对 157 名女性的进一步测试表明，VQLI 总分与外阴疾病对整体健康的影响之间存在显著关系，外阴疾病对整体健康的影响程度与 VQLI 总分呈正相关（P<0.001）。
VQLI 是一种经过验证的、快速且可靠的工具，可用于测量外阴疾病对 QOL 的整体影响，可用于监测治疗反应或在研究环境中使用。
