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The correlation of the “Walking Estimated-Limitation Calculated by History” (WELCH) questionnaire with treadmill maximal walking time is not impaired by age, in patients with claudication

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Abstract

Purpose

The “Walking Estimated-Limitation Calculated by History” (WELCH) questionnaire is a short four-item questionnaire that estimates the walking capacity of a patient in comparison with relatives, friends or people the same age. As such, it should be relatively insensitive to age, yet this has never been tested.

Methods

A prospective study was performed among 525 patients presenting vascular-type claudication. Patients were grouped into quintiles of age—from quintile 1 for the youngest patients to quintile 5 for the oldest ones. Patients completed a self-administered questionnaire and then had their maximal walking time (MWT) measured on a treadmill. We estimated the coefficient of correlation, the slope and the intercept of the relationship between the WELCH score and the MWT, then the accuracy of a WELCH score under 25 to predict the ability to walk for 5 min on a treadmill.

Results

The slopes of the relationships and the correlation coefficients were not significantly different in each quintile, but a significant shift in the intercept of regressing lines was found with age. Nevertheless, the accuracy in predicting treadmill results from the WELCH score with a cut-off point of 25 was, respectively, 68.6, 72.4, 80.0, 72.4 and 73.3 % in quintiles 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 (p = 0.45).

Conclusions

The relationship of MWT on a treadmill and the WELCH score is slightly influenced by age, but a score superior to 25 seems to be of equal discriminatory performance in different quintiles of age to predict the ability to walk for 5 min on a treadmill. This makes this cut-off limit of interest for routine use, regardless of age.

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Conflict of interest

None.

Ethical standards

The study was approved by the local ethics committee and has therefore been performed in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments, and is an ancillary study of that referenced NCT01114178 on the clinicaltrial.gov website.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CHU Angers, Laboratory for Vascular Investigations, University Hospital, 4 rue Larrey, 49933, Angers Cedex 09, France

    Alban Fouasson-Chailloux, Pierre Abraham, Isabelle Laporte, Loukman Omarjee & Nafi Ouedraogo

  2. Department of Integrated Neurovascular and Mitochondrial Biology, INSERM UMR 1083 – CNRS UMR 6214, 49045, Angers, France

    Pierre Abraham & Nafi Ouedraogo

  3. Department of Biostatistics, University Hospital, 49933, Angers Cedex 09, France

    Bruno Vielle

  4. Department de Médecine, CHU Souro Sanou, 01 BP2161, Bobo Dioulasso, Burkina Fasso

    Nafi Ouedraogo

Authors
  1. Alban Fouasson-Chailloux
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  2. Pierre Abraham
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  3. Bruno Vielle
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  4. Isabelle Laporte
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  5. Loukman Omarjee
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  6. Nafi Ouedraogo
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Pierre Abraham.

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Fouasson-Chailloux, A., Abraham, P., Vielle, B. et al. The correlation of the “Walking Estimated-Limitation Calculated by History” (WELCH) questionnaire with treadmill maximal walking time is not impaired by age, in patients with claudication. Qual Life Res 24, 1857–1864 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-015-0915-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-015-0915-9

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