Translation, cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the Osteoarthritis Quality of Life (OAQoL) questionnaire for use in Portugal

Translation, Cultural Adaptation, Validation and Reliability of Persian Left Ventricular Dysfunction-36 Questionnaire

BACKGROUND

The left ventricular dysfunction 36 (LVD-36) questionnaire is considered to be a tool to assess the impact of left ventricle impairment on patients' daily life. This methodological study was aimed to translate and assess the validity and reliability of the Persian draft of the LVD-36 questionnaire among Iranian heart failure (HF) patients.

METHODS

We recruited stable HF patients who referred to an outpatient heart clinic in Isfahan, Iran. The LVD-36 questionnaire was translated using the forward-backward method. Twenty HF patients were recruited for content validity assessment and were asked to express their opinions about the comprehensibility and meaningfulness of each item. We invited 14 experts to assess validity through content validity index (CVI) and content validity ratio (CVR). Reliability was assessed by Cronbach's alpha and intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), with the latter evaluated after invitation of the participants to complete the questionnaire for the second time.

RESULTS

The translation process was performed uneventfully without any significant alterations. A total of 150 HF patients were recruited to assess the reliability of the questionnaire in this study (age: 64.6±16 years, males: 58.6%). All items had acceptable CVI and CVR, ranging 0.85-1.00 and 0.57-1.00, respectively. Cronbach's alpha was 0.971. All participants completed the questionnaire for the second time with no missing data. Test-retest reliability revealed an excellent ICC value of 0.981 (95% CI: 0.977-0.985).

CONCLUSION

The Persian version of the LVD-36 questionnaire is a simple, valid and reliable tool for evaluating the impact of left ventricle impairment on the well-being of Iranian HF patients.

Translation and validation of the Arabic version of the osteoarthritis quality of life questionnaire (OAQoL) in Saudi patients with osteoarthritis

Background

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a debilitating multifactorial degenerative rheumatic disease affecting millions of people around the globe. The osteoarthritis quality of life scale (OAQoL), originally produced in the English language, is an important tool used to assess the overall impact of OA and its treatment on the patient’s quality of life.

Purpose

The purpose of the study was to translate and validate the OAQoL in the Arabic language in order to use it on the Saudi population.

Methodology

A bilingual panel comprising four healthcare professionals and one external certified medical translator translated the English version of the OAQoL to the Arabic language. A back translation was subsequently performed by two English-speaking translators and any differences were resolved by conferring with the original panel. The qualitative research was performed through cognitive debriefing interviews (CDIs) with 59 native Arabic patients who had clinically and radiologically confirmed osteoarthritis of any joint. The internal consistency of the 22 items was derived by leveraging the Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient.

Results

59 participants were included in the study, and more than half (52.5%) of them were men. The response rate was 100% and the mean time taken to answer the questionnaire was 10.5 min. The average Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) and Cronbach’s Alpha were determined to be 0.93 each, indicating that all the items in the OAQoL were significantly interrelated.

Conclusion

The translated Arabic version of the OAQoL questionnaire used in this study is a reliable and consistent tool that showed good comprehensibility and internal consistency.

Adaptation and validation of the Rheumatoid Arthritis Quality of Life (RAQoL) questionnaire for use in Bulgaria

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic disease with an enormous impact on patients' quality of life. The Rheumatoid Arthritis Quality of Life (RAQoL) questionnaire is a disease-specific measure of QoL for individuals with rheumatoid arthritis. Our aim was to adapt and validate the RAQoL for use in Bulgaria. The development of a new language version of the RAQoL consisted of three stages: translation, field testing and psychometric evaluation. The dual-panel methodology, requiring two independent panels of Bulgarian speakers, was applied to translate the UK English version of the RAQoL into Bulgarian. Face and content validity of the translated questionnaire were assessed through cognitive debriefing interviews. Lastly, the RAQoL was administered on two occasions to a random sample of RA patients to evaluate reliability and validity. At the first occasion, the SF-36 was also administered for use as a comparator scale. The RAQoL was successfully adapted into Bulgarian and considered easy to understand, acceptable and comprehensive by RA patients. A psychometric study demonstrated that the new language version has excellent internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha coefficients = 0.93 and 0.94) and test-retest reliability (a Spearman's rank correlation coefficient = 0.97). Convergent validity was established by correlating scores on the RAQoL with a comparator measure, the SF-36. A strong correlation between RAQoL scores and the physical functioning section of the SF-36 was observed. Known group validity was established by the ability of the measure to distinguish between subgroups of patients, who differed according to their perceived general health, disease severity (p < 0.001) and whether they were experiencing a flare-up (p < 0.01). The new language version is recommended for use in future research studies, clinical trials and routine practice with Bulgarian RA patients.