Abstract
Alcoholic hepatitis is an acute and severe liver disease associated with high mortality rate. This study was conducted to develop the instrument of criterion for symptoms improvement after temperance. We made the symptoms improvement questionnaire for alcoholic hepatitis patients through reviewing traditional oriental medical literatures and got advices from the advisor committee with delphi technique. The advisor committee on this study was organized by 10 professors of internal medicine of oriental medical colleges nationwide. The questionnaire was composed of questions about 10 symptoms - fatigue, pain, anorexia, abdominal bloat, heaviness of the body, itch, nausea, sleep, dryness in the mouth and stools. We named it Alcoholic Hepatitis Symptoms Improvement Questionnaire(AHSIQ). We surveyed 65 male alcoholic hepatitis patients and checked liver function profile and AHSIQ before and after temperance four times for six weeks. As a result of factor analysis the scales of AHSIQ had content validity and construct validity. And internal consistency reliability was good(Cronbach's alpha=0.768-0.871). The total scale scores were statistically significant in gamma-GTP related validity. We suggest that AHSIQ would be effective for measuring symptoms improvement degree in alcoholic hepatitis patients through further investigations with larger clinical trials.
