OBJECTIVETo explore the effect of SF-36 scale being applied in different countries under different culture and to describe the quality of life of pulmonary tuberculosis patients in China and Thailand.

METHODSSF-36 scale was applied to pulmonary tuberculosis patients in both countries using face to face interview.

RESULTSMany coefficients among domains were greater than 0.5 when quality of life of tuberculosis patient in both countries was measured. Cronbach's coefficient of all domains were greater than 0.7 for tuberculosis patients in China while cronbach's Coefficient of most domains were equal or greater than 0.7 for tuberculosis patients in Thailand except for vitality and social domains. The score of social domain for patients in Thailand was greater than that of China.

CONCLUSIONStructure validity was not good for tuberculosis patients in both countries since there were some items overlapped in different domains. However, the reliability was good for measuring quality of life of tuberculosis patients both in China and in Thailand.

China ; epidemiology ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Quality of Life ; Reproducibility of Results ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Thailand ; epidemiology ; Tuberculosis, Pulmonary ; physiopathology ; psychology

Chronic sputum is a troublesome symptom in many respiratory diseases. The prevalence of chronic sputum varies from 1.2% to 13% according to the country. The purpose of this study was to estimate the prevalence of chronic sputum and to find its associated factors in a general Korean population. We analyzed the data of the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2010 and 2011. A total number of 6,783 subjects aged 40 yr or more were enrolled in this study with 3,002 men and 3,781 women. As a result, the prevalence of chronic sputum was 6.3% (n=430). Significant risk factors for chronic sputum by multivariate analysis were: age (> or =70 yr) (odds ratio [OR], 1.954; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.308-2.917), current smoking (OR, 4.496; 95% CI, 3.001-6.734), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (OR, 1.483; 95% CI, 1.090-2.018), and tuberculosis (OR, 1.959; 95% CI, 1.307-2.938). In conclusion, the prevalence of chronic sputum in Korea was in the intermediate range compared with other countries. Smoking is a preventable risk factor identified in this study, and major respiratory diseases, such as COPD and tuberculosis, should be considered in subjects with chronic sputum.
Adult ; Aged ; Chronic Disease ; Demography ; Female ; Humans ; Logistic Models ; Lung/physiopathology ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Odds Ratio ; Prevalence ; Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive/*epidemiology/physiopathology ; Questionnaires ; Republic of Korea ; Risk Factors ; Smoking ; *Sputum/microbiology ; Tuberculosis/*epidemiology/physiopathology

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Legal pulmonary disability in Korea is decided for chronic respiratory patients who have been diagnosed for a year or more, and the patients haven't gotten better after more than 2 months of sufficient treatment and they have shown no change in their pulmonary function within the two years after their original diagnosis. The purpose of this study was to investigate the clinical features and progress of those patients who have been diagnosed as having pulmonary disability. METHODS: We reviewed retrospectively the medical records of the patients who had been decided as having pulmonary disability at a tertiary university hospital from 2003 to 2004, and these patients could be followed up for more than 6 months. RESULTS: The number of enrolled patients was 118 (male : female = 95 : 23) and their mean age was 60+/-10 years. Their major underlying diseases were chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (n=45, 38%), tuberculous destroyed lung (n=29, 25%), and bronchial asthma (n=27, 23%). Of them, the number of patients with a class 1 pulmonary disability were 24 (20%), there were 28 class 2 patients (24%) and 66 class 3 patients (56%). The FEV1 could be followed up for 42 of these patients, of whom 20 patients showed no change or a decrease in their FEV1 but 22 showed an increased FEV1. Especially, some of them showed the increase of their FEV1 of 10% or more, and the 50% of them were patients with bronchial asthma. During the follow-up period, 6 patients died; 3 were class 1, 1 was class 2 and 2 were class 3. Five of these patients died of their underlying pulmonary diseases or combined pneumonia. CONCLUSIONS: It is necessary to decide the pulmonary disability after sufficient treatment and to perform periodic follow-up testing even after the disability decision for confirming that the disability is stable and also to adjust the class of the disability. Further studies are needed to observe the clinical progress and prognosis of patients with pulmonary disability by performing long-term follow-up for a large number of patients.
Asthma/mortality/*physiopathology ; Blood Gas Monitoring, Transcutaneous ; Decision Making ; *Disabled Persons ; Female ; Follow-Up Studies ; Forced Expiratory Volume ; Health Status Indicators ; Hospitals, University/statistics & numerical data ; Humans ; Korea/epidemiology ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive/mortality/*physiopathology ; Retrospective Studies ; Severity of Illness Index ; Time Factors ; Tuberculosis, Pulmonary/mortality/*physiopathology