Clinical & Experimental Cardiology
Open Access

Abstract

Validation of the Hebrew Version of the MacNew Heart Disease Healthrelated Quality of Life Questionnaire in Patients Undergoing Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery

Galit Geulayov, Neil Oldridge, Arnona Ziv, Ilia Novikov, Yaacov Drory and Rachel Dankner

Background: The MacNew questionnaire is a disease-specific health-related quality of life (HRQL) measure designed for patients with heart disease. We aimed to assess the psychometric property of the MacNew questionnaire in Hebrew-speaking patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) surgery.

Methods: The study sample comprised of 775 Hebrew-speaking patients undergoing CABG surgery. Patients were assessed twice: before CABG surgery and 12-months thereafter. They completed the MacNew, the Short Form-36 Health Survey (SF-36), the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, and a questionnaire on demographic and lifestyle habits.

Results: 775 patients completed the questionnaires at study entry, 599 (77%) of whom also provided data after 12 months. The internal consistency of the MacNew sub-scales was high (alpha coefficients: 0.88-0.94). There were moderate to high correlations between sub-scales of the MacNew and similar domains of the SF-36 (0.66-0.80). The MacNew scales discriminated between men and women, patients with and without congestive heart failure and between individuals with clinically significant symptoms of depression or anxiety and all other patients. The original three-factor structure was generally supported as most loadings met the 0.40 threshold on the expected factor. Patients attending cardiac rehabilitation programs after CABG surgery showed greater improvement in all the MacNew scales, particularly in physical functioning, compared to patients who had not participated in cardiac rehabilitation programmes.

Conclusions: The Hebrew version of MacNew was found to be a reliable and valid HRQL tool which is sensitive to change in patients undergoing CABG surgery. This instrument offers clinicians and researchers a useful tool for understanding the impact of heart disease and its treatment from the patient‘s perspective.