Quality of Life on Arterial Hypertension: Validity of Known Groups of MINICHAL

• Main Authors: Ana Lúcia Soares Soutello, Roberta Cunha Matheus Rodrigues, Fernanda Freire Jannuzzi, Thaís Moreira São-João, Gabriela Giordano Martinix, Wilson Nadruz Jr., Maria-Cecília Bueno Jayme Gallani
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Sociedade Brasileira de Cardiologia (SBC) 2015-04-01
• Series: Arquivos Brasileiros de Cardiologia
• Subjects: Hipertensão; Qualidade de Vida; Estudos de Validação; Ensaio Clínico; Psicometria; Questionários
• Online Access: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0066-782X2015000400006&lng=en&tlng=en

Introductions: In the care of hypertension, it is important that health professionals possess available tools that allow evaluating the impairment of the health-related quality of life, according to the severity of hypertension and the risk for cardiovascular events. Among the instruments developed for the assessment of health-related quality of life, there is the Mini-Cuestionario of Calidad de Vida en la Hipertensión Arterial (MINICHAL) recently adapted to the Brazilian culture. Objective: To estimate the validity of known groups of the Brazilian version of the MINICHAL regarding the classification of risk for cardiovascular events, symptoms, severity of dyspnea and target-organ damage. Methods: Data of 200 hypertensive outpatients concerning sociodemographic and clinical information and health-related quality of life were gathered by consulting the medical charts and the application of the Brazilian version of MINICHAL. The Mann-Whitney test was used to compare health-related quality of life in relation to symptoms and target-organ damage. The Kruskal-Wallis test and ANOVA with ranks transformation were used to compare health-related quality of life in relation to the classification of risk for cardiovascular events and intensity of dyspnea, respectively. Results: The MINICHAL was able to discriminate health-related quality of life in relation to symptoms and kidney damage, but did not discriminate health-related quality of life in relation to the classification of risk for cardiovascular events. Conclusion: The Brazilian version of the MINICHAL is a questionnaire capable of discriminating differences on the health‑related quality of life regarding dyspnea, chest pain, palpitation, lipothymy, cephalea and renal damage.