Living with long-term conditions: validation of the LTCQ
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Living with long-term conditions: validation of the Long-Term Conditions Questionnaire (LTCQ)
IRAS ID
181977
Contact name
Raymond Fitzpatrick
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Oxford
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 6 months, 1 days
Research summary
A large proportion of the population is affected by one or multiple long-term
conditions (LTCs). One of the aims of the NHS Outcomes Framework is to improve quality of life in LTCs. Quality of life is to be monitored by patient-reported
outcome measures (PROMs) and hence a new PROM was needed to specifically capture issues of importance for people with LTCs. A multiphase project aims to develop such a PROM. This started with qualitative in-depth interviews with people with LTCs to develop candidate items for the PROM and resulted in the first draft of the Long-Term Conditions Questionnaire (LTCQ). This draft was further tested and refined through cognitive interviews to lead to a 20 item LTCQ. The next phase of the study will be a survey to test the LTCQ in a sample of 1000 people with LTCs. Up to 3000 patients with LTCs will be invited by their GP practices to participate in a survey (Survey 1). Up to 500 participants will be re-contacted with a follow-up survey (Survey 2). The recruitment will aim to maximise diversity of LTCs and therefore patients with the following LTCs will be invited into the study: chronic back pain, bipolar disorder, cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), ischaemic heart disease (IHD), diabetes, depression, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), multiple sclerosis (MS), osteoarthritis (OA), psychoses, schizophrenia and stroke.
The study is jointly funded by a Department of Health Policy Research Unit and a National Institute for Health Research CLAHRC Oxford (Collaboration for Applied Health Research and Care).REC name
East Midlands - Derby Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/EM/0414
Date of REC Opinion
3 Sep 2015
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion