VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY OF THE ST-GEORGE RESPIRATORY QUESTIONNAIRE AFTER ADAPTATION TO A DIFFERENT LANGUAGE AND CULTURE - THE SPANISH EXAMPLE

We describe the adaptation into Spanish of the St George's Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ), a self-administered questionnaire developed by Jones et al. (1991) covering three domains of health in airways diseas e patients: symptoms, activity and impacts. For the adaptation, the fo rward and back-translation method by bilinguals was used, together wit h professional committee and lay panel, Once tested for feasibility an d comprehension, 318 male chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients with a wide range of disease severity completed the Spanish version of the SGRQ, The clinical status of the patients was evaluated concurrently with the measurement of health status, Lung Function was assessed in the 2 months before or after the questionnaire administra tion. The Spanish version of the SGRQ was acceptable and easy to under stand, Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient was 0.94 for the overa ll scale and 0.72 for ''Symptoms'', 0.89 for ''Activity'', and 0.89 fo r ''Impacts'' subscales, Correlation coefficients between the overall score and dyspnoea and % forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV(1 )) were 0.59 and -0.45, respectively, and these correlations were high er than those observed between the clinical variables and the Nottingh am Health Profile, a generic measure of health-related quality of life . Results of the study suggest that the Spanish version of the SGRQ is conceptually equivalent to the original, and similarly reliable and v alid, Although further studies should complete the adaptation work, re sults suggest that the SGRQ may already be used in Spain and in intern ational studies involving Spanish respiratory patients, According to t he present approach, it appears to be feasible to adapt a specific que stionnaire on health-related quality of life in respiratory disease to another language and culture.