Performance of the COPD Assessment Test in patients with connective tissue disease-associated interstitial lung disease.

BACKGROUND: Patients with connective tissue disease-associated interstitial lung disease (CTD-ILD) often experience impaired health status. In daily clinical practice, a short and easy instrument for assessing health status would be useful to help better understand the patient's condition. The COPD Assessment Test (CAT) is a simple questionnaire about respiratory symptoms and their impact. We aimed to examine the CAT's performance characteristics and to generate data to support its reliability and validity in patients with CTD-ILD.

METHODS: We used data from 132 CTD-ILD patients evaluated at Tosei General Hospital from July 2011 to July 2016 to assess the cross-sectional and longitudinal validity of the CAT.

RESULTS: The mean age of the patients was 64.5 years and 87 (66%) were women. There were no significant differences in CAT score between any of the CTD subgroups. Internal consistency (Cronbach's α = 0.881) and repeatability (intraclass correlation coefficient [ICC] = 0.803) for the CAT score were acceptable. At baseline, CAT score was significantly associated with clinically meaningful measures of physiologic function, exercise capacity, and dyspnea. Change in CAT score over 6-12 months was also associated with change in other measures. In the distribution- and anchor-based analyses, the estimated minimal clinically important difference of CAT score was 1-4 points.

CONCLUSION: These data support the validity and reliability of CAT as a sensitive measure for assessing health status in patients with CTD-ILD.