“PREDICTING WORSENING ASTHMA CONTROL FOLLOWING THE COMMON COLD”. M.J. WALTER, M. CASTRO, S.J. KUNSELMAN, V.M. CHINCHILLI, M. RENO, T.P. RAMKUMAR, P.C. AVILA, H.A. BOUSHEY, B.T. AMEREDES, E.R. BLEECKER, W.J. CALHOUN, R.M. CHERNIACK, T.J. CRAIG, L.C. DENLINGER, E. ISRAEL, J.V. FAHY, N.N. JARJOUR, M. KRAFT, S.C. LAZARUS, R.F. LEMANSKE JR, R.J. MARTIN S.P. PETERS, J.W. RAMSDELL, C.A. SORKNESS, E.R. SUTHERLAND, S.J. SZEFLER, S.I. WASSERMAN, M.E. WECHSLER AND THE NATHIONAL HEART, LUNG AND BLOOD INSTITUTE’S ASTHMA CLINICAL RESEARCH NETWORK. EUR RESPIR J 2008; 32: 1548–1554.

Professor Elizabeth Juniper kindly granted the Asthma Clinical Research Network permission to use her copyrighted, validated shortened version of her Asthma Control Questionnaire (ACQ) 1–3 in our studies. In the above study, we regret that we modified her questionnaire without her authorisation. In this study, we referred to it as the “PAX Feasibility Asthma Control Questionnaire” and we posted this modified version in the supplement to our article (figures S1 and S2). Throughout the manuscript our modified version was referred to incorrectly as the “mini-ACQ” when in fact it should have been referred to as “a modified version of a validated shortened version of the ACQ” 2, 3.

Some of the modifications to the questionnaire were made with the intention of facilitating data recording and entry, and adapting for available short-acting bronchodilator drugs in North America; other changes were made through inadvertence.

The questionnaire was modified from the version faxed to us by Professor Juniper to contain the following.

1) The numbers of the seven-point response scale were subscripted and made smaller so that they were no longer adjacent to their verbal descriptor or the tick boxes. Professor Juniper considers that this may have introduced bias and that some patients may not have realised that they were responding to a numerical scale, especially as similar numbers were added to the “yes/no” response to the cold question.

2) Copyright ownership, date and statement (“The Asthma Control Questionnaire is copyrighted. It may not be altered, sold (paper or electronic), translated or adapted for another medium without the permission of Elizabeth Juniper”) were removed. The name of the questionnaire was changed.

3) Asthma Clinical Research Network (ACRN) header was added.

4) Additional question regarding current cold symptoms placed above the instructions. (This question was not incorporated in the shortened ACQ score.)

5) Instructions to identify each response by checking a box (instead of circling the number in front of each response).

6) The words in each question, used to emphasise that patients should respond to each question as related to their asthma, were unboldened (this was not intentional, as bolding was not apparent in facsimile).

7) Modification of Question 6: the phrase “how many puffs/inhalations of short-acting bronchodilator (e.g., Ventolin/Bricanyl)” was changed to “how many puffs of short-acting bronchodilator (e.g., Ventolin or Proventil)”.

Professor Juniper has indicated these modifications may have affected the validity, measurement properties and interpretability of the ACQ. We are evaluating whether our changes are likely to have altered the properties of the questionnaire or the conclusions of the paper.

The authors apologise to the European Respiratory Journal and Professor Juniper for the modifications made to the validated shortened version of the ACQ and for failing to obtain authorisation for the changes and to follow proper copyright procedures. We will notify the ERJ Chief Editors as soon as we have completed our evaluation of the possible impact, if any, of the changes made to the interpretation of our findings.