Objective: Although satisfaction with asthma treatment is an important variable, it has received little attention and few validated measurement instruments are available. The aim of this study was to assess the psychometric properties and the feasibility of the Spanish adaptation of the Satisfaction With Asthma Treatment Questionnaire (SATQ) for inhaled medication.
Patients and methods: This cross-sectional study to validate the adapted SATQ included 239 patients (67.8% women) with stable asthma (mean age, 43.3 years; forced expiratory volume in 1 second, 89% of predicted) and a median time since diagnosis of 10 years. Intermittent asthma was reported in 23.0% of the patients and severe persistent disease in 15.9%. Patients filled out the questionnaire twice.
Results: A 4-dimensional factorial structure could be discerned. These dimensions were similar to the validation of the original questionnaire and explained 55.1% of the variance. Internal consistency was acceptable (Cronbach alpha, 0.880 for the overall score and 0.600-0.866 for subscales), as was reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient, 0.912 for the overall score and 0.841-0.916 for subscales). A significant moderate correlation was observed between the overall score and physician--and patient--reported satisfaction (rho=0.295 and 0.507, respectively). Three of the 4 subscales were able to discriminate between categories of the Global Initiative for Asthma. The questionnaire was completed in less than 10 minutes by 92.5% of the patients, and 93.7% left no field blank.
Conclusions: The Spanish adaptation of the SATQ is a useful, user-friendly instrument for measuring satisfaction with inhaled treatment.