Last update:
   31-Mar-2011
 

Arch Hellen Med, 28(2), March-April 2011, 257-260

ORIGINAL PAPER

Reliability of the FSI-10 questionnaire for the assessment of the usability of drug inhalers
in Greek patients

N. Grekas,1 A. Athanassiou,1 C. Iskos,1 D. Panagiotakos,2 A. Papataxiarchou,1 O. Porichi1
1Department for Clinical Trials, ELPEN Pharmaceutical Co Inc, Athens,
2Department of Dietetics and Nutrition, "Harokopio" University of Athens, Athens, Greece

OBJECTIVE The Feeling of Satisfaction with Inhaler (FSI-10) is a self-completed questionnaire designed to evaluate the opinion of patients about the usability of inhalers and their satisfaction with them. The aim of this study was to validate the Greek version of this questionnaire.

METHOD The study group consisted of 422 subjects (192 females) aged between 16 and 87 years, who suffered from asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and who regularly received their treatment exclusively via the inhaled route. All had already achieved mastery of their inhalers and they completed in full the Greek FSI-10 which had been translated from English into Greek by one specialist and back-translated into English by another specialist.

RESULTS The Greek version of the FSI-10 was easily understood and completed by all participants. The reliability of the questionnaire as a whole was found to be very satisfactory (Cronbach α=0.923).

CONCLUSIONS The reliability of the Greek version of the FSI-10 was confirmed by this study. The instrument fits its purpose very well and may be used in multicentre clinical trials conducted in Greece.

Key words: FSI-10 questionnaire, Inhalers, Patient satisfaction, Pulmonary disorder, Reliability.

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