Score for allergic rhinitis (SFAR)

Objectives. - A quantitative Score For Allergic Rhinitis (SFAR) was developed by a panel of French experts to compensate for the absence of a valid epidemiological assessment of allergic rhinitis (AR). Methods. - SFAR includes main characteristics of allergic rhinitis (symptoms, seasonality, triggers, personal history and perception of allergic diseases) and ranges between 0 and 16. SFAR was validated in four different ways by: 1) using psychometric methods (internal validation); 2) taking the specialist's diagnosis and skin prick tests positivity (SPT) as a gold standard in 269 outpatients (diagnosis validation); 3) examining the relationship of allergy markers (total IgE, MultiRAST, eosinophils and SPT) to common aeroallergens in 1332 adults (EGEA Study) (biological validation); 4) randomly selecting a population-based sample of 3001 individuals for a telephone interview (population accessibility). Results. -All validity checks have shown that a SFAR greater than or equal to7 satisfactorily identifies AR. Internal validation of the score was high (Cronbach's alpha coefficient =0.79). Diagnosis validation allowed a distinction to be made among the outpatients with AR from those without (sensitivity =74% [95% CI: 0.69; 0.79], specificity =83% [0.79; 0.87]. positive predictive value =84% [0.80; 0.88], negative predictive value =74% [0.69; 0.79], and Youden's index =0.57, respectively). SFAR greater than or equal to7 was significantly related to all allergy markers; the highest relationships were seen in the case of MultiRAST (OR =12.6 [8.4; 18.7]) and SPT positivity (OR =8.8 [5.9; 13.0]). On average, only three minutes were needed to complete the telephone interview SFAR questionnaire and the questions were well understood. Conclusion. - The Score For Allergic Rhinitis (SEAR) is practicable and useful for studying the prevalence and causation of AR in population settings. (C) 2003 Elsevier SAS. Tous droits reserves.