A comparison of the tablet-based and paper-based versions of the Aberdeen varicose vein questionnaire for quality-of-life assessment in patients with chronic venous disease.

BACKGROUND

The Aberdeen Varicose Vein Questionnaire (AVVQ) is the most widely-used questionnaire to assess chronic venous disease. Because the first item requires patients to agree to draw their veins, its paper form has been called into question leading to the development of a tablet version that has simplified its application. However, the literature still lacks a comparison of these tools.

OBJECTIVES

To compare agreement between scores, questionnaire completion time, and user-friendliness between paper-based and tablet-based versions of the AVVQ.

METHODS

In a prospective, multicenter trial, consecutive patients were asked to complete paper-based and tablet-based versions of the AVVQ. Scores, questionnaire completion time, data entry time, and degree of user difficulty were compared.

RESULTS

Data were collected from 88 patients, 22.7% had completed primary school and 43.2% had higher education. Most patients (88.6%) reported that the tablet version was easy to use. Median time to complete the questionnaire and compute scores was 4 minutes for the tablet version and 9.5 minutes for the paper version (p<0.001). Mean AVVQ scores obtained by patients did not differ significantly between the two groups (p=0.431).

CONCLUSIONS

In this study, paper and tablet versions of the AVVQ yielded similar scores, with the tablet version saving time when considering the entire process needed to apply the questionnaire and compute data.