ArticleThe British journal of dermatology2025
Measurement properties of the Comprehensive Quality-of-Life Measure for Acne (CompAQ): a cohort study at three international sites.
Article in The British journal of dermatology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
12 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe Comprehensive Quality-of-Life Measure for Acne (CompAQ) is a patient-reported outcome measure (PROM) assessing health-related quality of life (HRQoL) among patients with acne. The measure is one of two acne-specific PROMs that had the strongest evidence to support its use in a recent COSMIN systematic review.
objectivesTo build on prior validation studies of CompAQ by confirming several of its known measurement properties in a cohort of patients with acne at three international sites; and, to establish the responsiveness of the measure during acne treatment.
methodsAdults being seen for routine acne treatment at dermatology clinics in Canada, the USA and Singapore were recruited between July 2022 and September 2024 to participate in this cohort study. At each visit, participants completed the CompAQ, which consists of 20 items representing five domains (i.e. emotions, social judgement, social interaction, treatment and symptoms domains) and several other relevant measures. Structural validity was assessed by confirmatory factor analysis, internal consistency by calculating Cronbach's α values, and construct validity by known groups and convergent validity hypothesis testing. We further evaluated for differential item functioning (DIF) across study site, sex and age. In addition, we assessed responsiveness by change-score validity hypothesis testing and calculating standardized response means (SRMs).
resultsOur study included 315 participants [mean (SD) age 25.2 (6.1) years; 219 (69.7%) women] and data were collected from a total of 588 visits. The CompAQ was found to have sufficient structural validity, internal consistency and construct validity among patients at each study site and in the combined cohort. In addition, no statistically significant uniform or nonuniform DIF was flagged for most items when analysing DIF by site, sex and age. Based on SRM estimates, the emotions (SRM 0.927) and symptoms (0.914) domains had the largest responsiveness, while the social judgement (0.606), social interaction (0.522) and treatment (0.787) domains had more moderate responsiveness.
conclusionsCompAQ represents a useful and responsive PROM to evaluate HRQoL among those with acne in clinical trials and clinical practice. Future studies are needed to evaluate the interpretability of the measure (i.e. identifying severity strata and minimally important differences).
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.