Objectives: There is no validated questionnaire in Turkish to assess asthma knowledge. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the reliability and validity of the Turkish version of the Asthma Self-Management Knowledge Questionnaire (AKQ) among asthmatic adults.
Material and methods: The AKQ was translated into Turkish by two medical-text translators, followed by back translation and final review by two clinicians with experience in asthma management. The Turkish Asthma Self-Management Questionnaire was then applied to 202 adult asthma patients, and additional demographic and clinical features of the patients were collected for analysis.
Results: The internal reliability of the 24-item AKQ was not high (Cronbach's alpha=0.55). Tukey's test of additivity was significant (p<0.001). This result revealed that all questions are consistent and measure the same concepts. Factor analysis demonstrated a probable structure of 10 factors that together explained 63.7% of total variance in results. Intra-class reliability of the AKQ was quite high.
Conclusion: This study shows that AKQ seems to be a suitable instrument to evaluate the effect of different components of asthma knowledge - such as triggers, medications, asthma exacerbations, and avoidance measures - in adult asthmatics.
Keywords: Asthma; adult asthma knowledge; asthma knowledge questionnaire; reliability; validity.