[Cultural adaptation of the female pelvic floor questionnaire (FPFQ) into French]

Abstract

Aims: The Female Pelvic Floor Questionnaire (FPFQ) is a self-administered tool on pelvic floor function. Our aim was to carry out a cultural adaptation of the FPFQ into French and to assess its psychometric properties.

Methods: After cross-cultural adaptation into French, acceptability and reliability of the questionnaire were assessed through a sample of 56 women in a test-retest. Discriminative construct validity was evaluated by comparing the results obtained by the FPFQ to those of other validated questionnaires. Longitudinal follow-up of the 282 pregnant women included in the PreNatal Pelvic floor Prevention trial (3PN) was used to analyze responsiveness.

Results: The proportion of missing data did not exceed 4 % for questions about bladder function, bowel function and pelvic organ prolapse; 10 % for issues related to sexual function. Question 9 was considered difficult to understand by 14 % of women. After rewriting, this issue was retested in a new sample of 52 women and presented no further problems. The intra-class correlation coefficient was greater than or equal to 0.7 for all domains during the test-retest. The FPFQ was strongly and significantly correlated (Spearman r>0.5) with the other validated questionnaires. The French version of FPFQ recorded changes in urinary and sexual symptoms for the women involved in 3PN trial with a standardized response mean equal to 0.83 and 0.44, respectively.

Conclusion: The French version of the FPFQ is self-administered, reliable, valid, and can detect a change in symptoms during follow-up.

Level of evidence: Level 4.

Keywords: Adaptation culturelle; Français; French; Pelvic floor; Périnée; Questionnaire; Symptoms; Symptômes; Validation studies.