What is the Lung Information Needs Questionnaire (LINQ)?
LINQ is a self-complete questionnaire that measures the information needs of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). LINQ can also be used for patients with some other chronic lung diseases. It is not suitable for patients with asthma.
What is it used for?
LINQ is designed to help clinicians identify which patients would be helped by information and the type of information an individual patient needs. This questionnaire can also be used to evaluate the impact of intervention, including pulmonary rehabilitation, for research and audit purpose.
Why am I writing about it?
I have been involved with the development of LINQ for the last four years, and think it is a really valuable tool. Over this period we have used LINQ in a number of projects and it has be embraced by doctors working with patients suffering from chronic lung conditions.
We have had several papers published reporting patient needs and the relaibility and validity of LINQ, and have recently had another paper accepted reporting LINQs ability to measure change in information needs. The details of this publication will soon be posted on the research page, but if this is a topic you are interested in, then visit the LINQ homepage and learn a bit more about it.
One last thing is,who can use LINQ?
The LINQ is freely available for clinical use and not-for-profit research. It can be downloaded from the homepage in multiple languages. Because it is still a ‘young’ scale, it would be helpful if researchers email me or one of the members of the team listed on the LINQ website let us know if they intend to use it, so we can update them if needed. This is, however, entirely voluntary. We welcome comments about the experience of using the scale, and any data you care to share with us.