• George Kwok Chu Wong, Sandy Wai Lam, Karine Ngai, Adrian Wong, Wai Sang Poon, and Vincent Mok.
• Division of Neurosurgery, Prince of Wales Hospital, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. georgewong@surgery.cuhk.edu.hk
• J. Neurol. Sci. 2012 Sep 15;320(1-2):97-101.

BackgroundThe identification of aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH) patients with a decrease in health-related quality of life (HRQOL) is challenging. Failure of clinical trials has been partially attributed to lack of sensitivity in outcome measures. Stroke-specific Quality of Life (SS-QOL) is a disease-specific HRQOL tool widely applied in ischemic stroke researches, but not in aSAH.AimThis study aimed to validate a Chinese version of SSQOL (SS-QOL-CH) for aSAH patients and proposed summary scores for clinical application.MethodsWe carried out a prospective observational assessor-blinded multi-center study in Hong Kong. One hundred and four Chinese adults were recruited into the current study, and assessments of the outcome of aSAH patients were made 3months after ictus.ResultsInternal consistency was good and supported convergent validity for 12 domains of the SS-QOL-CH, with Cronbach's α coefficients ranging from 0.73 to 0.98. Principal component analyses suggested a two-component solution to explain a total of 65% variance. The two-component solution showed no significant floor or ceiling effects in our aSAH population. Validity of the criteria for the physical and psychosocial subtotal scores showed relevant and distinct correlations with other outcome measures.ConclusionsDichotomization of physical and psychosocial subtotal scores is valid and can simplify applications of the scale.Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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