Validation of the carolinas comfort scale (CCS) in Brazil: a hernia-specific quality of life questionnaire.

INTRODUCTION

Ventral hernia surgery (VHS) has the intent to promote a better quality of life (QoL). VHS results were evaluated by recurrence incidence in the past, however the concept of Patient-Reported Outcomes Measures has changed this scenario. SF-36 is a generic questionnaire with some limitations on the hernioplasty postoperative evaluation. Disease-specific surveys such Hernia-Related Quality of Life Survey (HerQLes) and Carolinas Comfort Scale (CCS) were developed to improve specificity. The aim of this study was to validate a Brazilian version of the CCS as a QoL questionnaire for patients undergoing VHS in Brazil.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The study consists of a retrospective cohort that reviewed the medical records of patients who underwent ventral hernia surgery for incisional hernias in the Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre between January 2019 to December 2020. Participants answered both the HerQles questionnaire and the CCS, then we compared the patients' scores between scales. In-personal evaluations or surveys applied by telemedicine were performed. Intraclass correlation coefficient was utilized to assess the consistency of the agreement between the HerQLes and CCS scales.

RESULTS

A sample of 80 patients were evaluated. Most were male (70%), mean age 61.11 years and BMI 28.4. The most common comorbidity was systemic arterial hypertension, one third were smokers and 77.5% of cases were ASA 2. The average HerQLes score was 30.40 and the CCS was 15.46 (SD: 21.81), with an intraclass coefficient of 0.68.

CONCLUSION

This study suggests that CCS is a good and robust tool for assessing ventral hernia. Tools to measure QoL are increasingly used in the literature, as QoL seems to be important data to assess surgical success, since it shows the perception of the patient about the results of their surgery. Further studies with larger sample sizes should be performed to confirm our findings.