The goal of a new study published in Facial Plastic Surgery was to create a new standardized questionnaire that is specific to auricular keloid patients and reflects their clinical symptoms and quality of life (QoL).

The Keloid Intervention Benefit Inventory 21 (KIBI-21) questionnaire was developed in two stages. Initially a pool of 26 questions were identified and modified and supplemented the items through a comparison with existing QoL assessments—so that they related to keloid-specific clinical symptoms and the QoL of patients with auricular keloids before and after a medical intervention. This questionnaire was distributed to 27 outpatients who had undergone medical interventions for visible auricular keloids. Thereafter, a sequential statistical analysis was conducted.

The final version of this newly validated and standardized KIBI questionnaire consisted of 21 items, of which each item was assigned to only one subscale. The questionnaire showed a Cronbachs α of 0.84 with a good internal consistency. Meanwhile, in the item correlation validity, strong associations were found in all subscales, except for the Social Impact Subscale.

Thus, the keloid-specific QoL questionnaire KIBI-21 was found to be a reliable and reproducible instrument to assess the QoL and clinical symptoms in patients suffering from auricular keloids before and after a medical treatment.

Source: Facial Plastic Surgery. 2021 Feb 1. doi: 10.1055/s-0041-1722913.