Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Questionnaire

To evaluate aspects of HRQL that are specific to a particular disease or condition, specific measures also may be used. Specific measures include only important aspects of HRQL that are relevant to the patients being studied, such as the loss of function patients experience from asthma or the amount of pain they have from arthritis. Disadvantages of using specific measures are that they are not comprehensive and cannot be used to compare across conditions. They also cannot measure unforeseen side effects or conditions. Examples of specific instruments for heart failure are the Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Questionnaire and the Chronic Heart Failure Questionnaire (Guyatt et al., 1989 Rector, Kubo, and Cohn, 1987). 

Rector TS, Kubo SH, Cohn JN. 1987. Patients self-assessment of their heart failure II. Content, reliability and validity of a new measure—the Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Questionnaire. Heart Failure 3 198. 

Rector TS, Cohn JN. Assessment of patient outcome with the Minnesota living with heart failure questionnaire reliability and validity during a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of pimobendan. Am Heart J 1992 124 1017-25,... 

Rector TS, Kubo SH, Cohn JN. Validity of the Minnesota living with heart failure questionnaire as a measure of therapeutic response to enalapril or placebo. Am J Cardiol 1993 71 1106-7. 

While the effects of /3-blockers on survival prolongation and left ventricular reverse remodeling could be argued to be greater than those of any other drugs used in heart failure, this is not the case for their symptomatic benefits. Many, but not all studies, have shown improvements in the NYHA functional class, patient symptom scores or quality-of-life assessments (such as the Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Questionnaire), and exercise performance, as assessed by the 6-minute walk test. Thus it is important to educate patients that they will not necessarily notice dramatic symptomatic improvements with /3-blocker therapy. However, even in the absence of symptomatic... 

---