The Reflux Disease Questionnaire: a measure for assessment of treatment response in clinical trials

Background: Critical needs for treatment trials in gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) include assessing response to treatment, evaluating symptom severity, and translation of symptom questionnaires into multiple languages. We evaluated the previously validated Reflux Disease Questionnaire (RDQ) for internal consistency, reliability, responsiveness to change during treatment and the concordance between RDQ and specialty physician assessment of symptom severity, after translation into Swedish and Norwegian. Methods: Performance of the RDQ after translation into Swedish and Norwegian was evaluated in 439 patients with presumed GERD in a randomized, double-blind trial of active treatment with a proton pump inhibitor. Results: The responsiveness was excellent across three RDQ indicators. Mean change scores in patients on active treatment were large, also reflected in effect sizes that ranged from a low of 1.05 (dyspepsia) to a high of 2.05 (heartburn) and standardized response means 0.99 (dyspepsia) and 1.52 (heartburn). A good positive correlation between physician severity ratings and RDQ scale scores was seen. The internal consistency reliability using alpha coefficients of the scales, regardless of language, ranged from 0.67 to 0.89. Conclusion: The results provide strong evidence that the RDQ is amenable to translation and represents a viable instrument for assessing response to treatment, and symptom severity.