Objective: To select appropriate descriptors for response of the patient-reported outcome (PRO) scale for the main symptoms of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) complicated with pulmonary heart disease.

Methods: A cross-sectional investigation was carried out. Five equidistant ordinal descriptive words in the PRO scale of main symptoms for COPD complicated with pulmonary heart disease were selected. There were 32 alternative words in the questionnaire. Thirty respondents were required to place each descriptive word on a 10-centimeter line according to where they considered each descriptive word should be placed. Then, the line was measured by ruler; average, standard deviation and median were calculated by excel software; the authors finally chose the five equidistant words which accurately reflect the degree of main symptoms.

Results: The five most appropriate descriptive words were selected; they were “never”, “seldom”, “half-partly sometimes”, “very often” and “always”.

Conclusion: These selected decorated words are suitable for the PRO scale for patients with COPD complicated with pulmonary heart disease.

Key words: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pulmonary heart disease, responsive scale, measuring scale, clinical trial