[Adaptation and validation of the Rheumatoid Arthritis Quality of Life Scale (RAQoL) to Mexican Spanish]

Abstract

Objective: To develop and validate the Mexican-Spanish version of the Rheumatoid Arthritis Quality of Life questionnaire (RAQoL).

Methods: The original UK English version of RAQoL was translated into Mexican-Spanish version by a bilingual translation panel. An independent lay panel reviewed the instrument's item phrasing to ensure comprehensiveness and appropriateness in colloquial Mexican-Spanish. Structured cognitive debriefing interviews were conducted with 15 Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) patients to assess face and content validity. Finally, an independent sample of RA patients completed the RAQoL and additional assessments were performed to assess reproducibility and construct validity.

Results: Translation and adaptation was successful as both the lay panel and cognitive debriefing participants considered the new language version to be appropriate. Fifty-seven patients were included in the final evaluation of the Mexican-Spanish version of RAQoL (73.8% female, mean age 52.4 years, SD 14.1, RA duration range 2-27 years). Cronbach's α for the new RAQoL was 0.91 and the test-retest reliability 0.92, indicating that the measure has good internal consistency and low random measurement error. The Mexican-Spanish version of RAQoL could discriminate between patients who differed on their perception of disease activity, general health status, current rating of perceived RA severity and whether or not they were experiencing a disease flare.

Conclusions: The Mexican-Spanish version of RAQoL was well accepted by RA patients. The psychometric quality of the adapted questionnaire shows that it is suitable for use in clinical studies and trials of patients with RA.