French translation and validation of the Edinburgh questionnaire for the diagnosis of intermittent limping.

Obliterative arterial disease of the lower limbs is diagnosed by simple, re producible, sensitive and non-invasive methods. One of these, a questionnai re for the diagnosis on intermittent limping, is a method of choice. Until recent years, the only validated questionnaire was the one proposed by the World Health Organisation. This was criticised a lot, especially for its la ck of sensitivity. Recently, a Scottish group proposed an improvement in the diagnostic perfor mance of this questionnaire by carrying out several changes. This new versi on, called the Edinburgh Questionnaire, has promising diagnostic qualities. The authors present a French version of this questionnaire. This French tr anslation was validated in 105 patients referred for diagnosis of obliterat ive lower limb arterial disease. A sensitivity of 86.5%, a specificity of 9 5.6%, a positive predictive value of 91.4% and a negative predictive value of 92.9% of this French version are comparable to the results obtained with the English version. Therefore, the authors suggest using this questionnai re in epidemiological and public health studies in France.