Health status in routine clinical practice: validity of the clinical COPD questionnaire at the individual patient level.

Background: There is a growing interest to use health status or disease control questionnaires in routine clinical practice. However, the validity of most questionnaires is established using techniques developed for group level validation. This study examines a new method, using patient interviews, to validate a short health status questionnaire, the Clinical COPD Questionnaire (CCQ), at the individual patient level.

[Melioidosis: the importance of a detailed medical history, including recent travels].

A 70-year-old woman was admitted to hospital with fever and signs of bronchopneumonia following a recent visit to Southeast Asia. She was diagnosed with melioidosis and treated with ceftazidime i.v.