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

Introductions

In the care of hypertension, it is important that health professionalspossess available tools that allow evaluating the impairment of thehealth-related quality of life, according to the severity of hypertensionand the risk for cardiovascular events. Among the instruments developed forthe assessment of health-related quality of life, there is theMini-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 theMINICHAL 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 clinicalinformation and health-related quality of life were gathered by consultingthe medical charts and the application of the Brazilian version of MINICHAL.The Mann-Whitney test was used to compare health-related quality of life inrelation to symptoms and target-organ damage. The Kruskal-Wallis test andANOVA with ranks transformation were used to compare health-related qualityof life in relation to the classification of risk for cardiovascular eventsand intensity of dyspnea, respectively.

Results

The MINICHAL was able to discriminate health-related quality of life inrelation to symptoms and kidney damage, but did not discriminatehealth-related quality of life in relation to the classification of risk forcardiovascular events.

Conclusion

The Brazilian version of the MINICHAL is a questionnaire capable ofdiscriminating differences on the health‑related quality of life regardingdyspnea, chest pain, palpitation, lipothymy, cephalea and renal damage.