Objective: COOP/WONCA Functional Assessment Charts are widely in use in research and clinical work. They originally evolved from Dartmouth COOP Functional Assessment Charts. Our objective is to describe our experiences with COOP/WONCA Charts and to provide data on reliability and reference data from a normal population.
Method: A test-retest study comprising 40 randomly selected patients attending GPs' surgeries was conducted. Eight GPs took part in this study. The response rate for the questionnaire was 100%. In a second study, 245 asthma patents who consulted 53 different GPs were consecutively included; 171 of these repeated completion of the charts after 6 months. Mean scores from a random sample of 2864 persons in the total population of the municipality of Ullensaker in Norway are given as reference values. There was a postal return rate of 64%.
Results and conclusions: The reliability of the charts is good, and nine out of ten of the patients gave clinically meaningful answers after 2-3 days. The scores of the 171 asthma patients were nearly identical after 6 months. The reference values are presented. A standardized method for reliability testing is discussed, and the use of COOP/WONCA Functional Assessment Charts is commented on.