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Background and Purpose: The psychometric properties of the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire (KCCQ) have been examined primarily in community-dwelling patients with heart failure (HF). The objective of this research was to examine the properties of the KCCQ administered to patients hospitalized with HF (N = 233). Methods: Confirmatory factor analysis, Cronbach's alphas, and correlations were performed to examine the scale's dimensions, reliability, and validity. Results: Confirmatory factor analysis indicated a 5-factor solution (63.6% of the variance). The Cronbach's alpha levels were greater than .70, except for the self-efficacy dimension (.60). Convergent validity was not verified between the KCCQ and several illness severity measures. Conclusions: The psychometric properties of the KCCQ may be different based on the population in which the KCCQ is administered, which may have clinical implications.
Keywords: heart failure; factor analysis; chronic illness
The Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire (KCCQ) was developed by Green, Porter, Bresnahan, and Spertus (2000) as a disease-specific, health-related quality of life measurement tool for patients with heart failure (HF). The KCCQ is a 23-item questionnaire that was designed to measure the construct of self-perceived health status which is defined by the following domains: physical limitation, symptoms (stability, frequency, and burden), self-efficacy, social limitation, and quality of life. Scores from select individual domains are collated into symptom, clinical, and an overall summary score, with higher scores indicating higher perceived health status (health-related quality The KCCQ has been found to be a valuable tool for accurately reflecting clinical change in patients with HF (Sauser, Spertus, Pierchala, Davis, & Pang, 2014; Spertus, Jones, Kim, & Globe, 2008; Spertus et al., 2005;) and as an independent predictor of event-free survival in the HF patient population (Parissis et al., 2008), including patients with HF with preserved ejection fraction (Joseph et al., 2013). The KCCQ has also been shown to be a useful scale to measure health-related quality of life in patients discharged of life).
The KCCQ has been found to be a valuable tool for accurately reflecting clinical change in patients with HF (Sauser, Spertus, Pierchala, Davis, & Pang, 2014; Spertus, Jones, Kim, & Globe, 2008; Spertus et al., 2005;) and as an independent predictor of event-free survival in the HF patient population (Parissis et al., 2008), including patients with HF with preserved...