Hi,
Many of my patients are elderly and may not be able to read the questionnaire due to poor eye sight. Will the results of this questionnaire still be valid if I have someone read the questions to my patients and then have that person mark the answer for the patient?

I have a question about item no. 2 on the questionnaire that deals with symptom stability. We administer the survey on the initial visit to the outpatient heart failure program and then after 3 months of participation in the program. We have found that at 3 months the scores you achieve on this question are considerably lower because it is specifically asking the patient about how they feel their symptoms are over the last 2 weeks. When you ask this question don’t you feel at the 3 month interval they should be comparing their symptoms to when they first enrolled in the program?

Most of our patients are usually hospitalized prior to enrollment in the program so their initial answer is that their symptoms are not well controlled.