Dyspnea is a cardinal Respiratory symptom.~According to the ATS dyspnea is the term used to characterize a subjective experience of breathing discomfort, covering qualitatively distinct sensations of varying intensity.~The subjective nature of dyspnea and the high complexity of its determinants explain the often moderate correlations obtained with physiological data. Dyspnea must therefore be measured specifically.~The aim of this study is the cross-sectional and longitudinal psychometric validation of a self-administered dyspnea questionnaire (assessing the impact of dyspnea on activities restriction), usable in clinical practice in order to assess dyspnea and its alterations in adult patients with chronic respiratory diseases.~(COPD, diffuse interstitial lung diseases, Pulmonary arterial hypertension, Cystic fibrosis)~Like any psychometric instrument, an efficient evaluation of dyspnea scale should ideally satisfy all the following required features: evaluative, discriminant, good reproducibility, and high sensitivity to change.~The desired features apart from content validity are reproducibility and especially a high sensitivity to change, particularly following pulmonary rehabilitation.~Thus, this questionnaire should precisely enable to assess the benefit of rehabilitation and it's sustainment in maintenance phase.
The purpose of this study is the psychometric validation of a self-administered dyspnea questionnaire, usable in clinical practice in order to assess dyspnea and its impact on patients with chronic respiratory diseases.