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Review
. 2023 Aug;35(8):1581-1593.
doi: 10.1007/s40520-023-02438-3. Epub 2023 May 23.

Measuring health-related quality of life in sarcopenia: summary of the SarQoL psychometric properties

Charlotte Beaudart  1 , Jean-Yves Reginster  2 , Jotheeswaran Amuthavalli Thiyagarajan  3 , Ivan Bautmans  4 , Jürgen Bauer  5 , Nansa Burlet  2 , Matteo Cesari  6   7 , Antonio Cherubini  8 , Cyrus Cooper  9 , Alfonso J Cruz-Jentoft  10 , Bess Dawson-Hughes  11 , Roger A Fielding  12 , Nicholas C Harvey  9   13 , Francesco Landi  14 , Andrea Laslop  15 , Stefania Maggi  16 , Beatriz Montero-Errasquin  10 , Prieto Yerro María Concepción  17 , Yves Rolland  18 , René Rizzoli  19 , Marjolein Visser  20 , Olivier Bruyère  2
Affiliations
Review

Measuring health-related quality of life in sarcopenia: summary of the SarQoL psychometric properties

Charlotte Beaudart et al. Aging Clin Exp Res. 2023 Aug.

Abstract

Patient perspectives are now widely recognized as a key element in the evaluation of health interventions. Therefore, the provision of specific and validated Patient Reported Outcome Measures that emphasize the lived experience of patients suffering from specific diseases is very important. In the field of sarcopenia, the only validated specific health-related quality of life (HRQoL) instrument available is the Sarcopenia Quality of Life questionnaire (SarQoL). This self-administrated HRQoL questionnaire, developed in 2015, consists of 55 items arranged into 22 questions and has currently been translated into 35 languages. Nineteen validation studies performed on SarQoL have consensually confirmed the capacity of SarQoL to detect difference in HRQoL between older people with and without sarcopenia, its reliability and its validity. Two further observational studies have also indicated its responsiveness to change. A short form SarQoL, including only 14 items has further been developed and validated to reduce the potential burden of administration. Research on the psychometric properties of SarQoL questionnaire is still encouraged as the responsiveness to change of SarQoL has not yet been measured in the context of interventional studies, as limited prospective data currently exist and as there is still not cut-off score to define a low HRQoL. In addition, SarQoL has mainly been used in community-dwelling older individuals with sarcopenia and would benefit to be studied in other types of populations. This review aims to provide to researchers, clinicians, regulators, pharmaceutical industries and other stakeholders a clear summary of comprehensive evidence on the SarQoL questionnaire published up to January 2023Query.

Keywords: HRQoL; Psychometric properties; Quality of life; Sarcopenia; Validation.

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Conflict of interest statement

C. Beaudart is the architect of SarQoL. O. Bruyère, R. Rizzoli, Y Rolland, I Bautmans and J-Y. Reginster participated in its development. SarQoL is patented by a spin-off of the University of Liège; C. Beaudart, O. Bruyère, J-Y. Reginster and I. Bautmans are shareholders of SarQoL. However, they did not receive any financial or non-financial compensation for this work. Dr Fielding was supported by the Boston Claude Pepper Older Americans Independence Center P30AG031679 and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), under agreement No. 58–1950-4–003; any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of the USDA. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of WHO neither. Other authors reported no conflicts of interest in relation to this work.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Discriminative power of SarQoL – data reported from 20 individual studies identified from a systematic literature review (Figure issued from Beaudart et al. 2023 [45])
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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