TRANSLATION AND VALIDATION OF THE AMERICAN-UROLOGICAL-ASSOCIATION SYMPTOM INDEX INTO SPANISH

The US population is multiethnic in composition: many languages thrive , and Spanish is the second most frequently spoken language. The Hispa nic population is one of the fastest growing ethnic groups in the Unit ed States. The majority of Hispanics speak Spanish at home (63%), and a significant proportion speak little or no English (25%). The purpose of this study was to translate the American Urological Association (A UA) symptom index into Spanish and to validate the final translation. To translate the AUA symptom index, a combination of four methods was used: forward- and back-translation, evaluation of the translated vers ion by a committee, testing of the translated index with healthy bilin gual subjects, and correlation of the scores of bilingual patients wit h benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) who were administered both the AU A symptom index and the Maine Medical Assessment Program (MMAP) sympto m index. One-way analysis of variance was used to compare the scores o f healthy bilinguals, and no significant differences were found betwee n the English and Spanish versions. Multivariate analysis of variance revealed that none of the seven questions showed statistical differenc es between the Spanish and English versions. This provided further evi dence that the questions were translated properly into Spanish and tha t they can be used to measure the same concepts as the English questio ns. After both indexes (AUA and MMAP) were administered to bilingual p atients with BPH, the study found that the correlation between the Spa nish version of the AUA symptom index and the MMAP was 0.85. This is f urther evidence that the Spanish version of the AUA symptom index is a ccurate and can be used to measure the symptoms of BPH as well as the English counterpart.