The Spanish version of the Paediatric Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire(PAQLQ): Metric characteristics and equivalence with the original version

The Paediatric Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire (PAQLQ), developed by J uniper etal., assesses the impact of asthma on children's daily life. It co ntains 23 items, covering three dimensions: symptoms, activities limitation and emotional function. Aims: To develop an equivalent Spanish version of the PAQLQ, and to assess its measurement characteristics. Methods: The forw ard and back-translation method was used for the adaptation. A longitudinal study (assessments at the 1st and 5th weeks), with patients from the emerg ency and outpatient departments of three Spanish hospitals, was designed to test the properties of the new adapted version. At each visit, a trained i nterviewer administered the PAQLQ, a Global Index of Change and a General H ealth Perception scale. The Peak Expiratory Flow Rate (PEFR) was also recor ded daily, together with symptoms, during the prior week. Results: Ninety-n ine patients (66.7% males, 42.4% suffering an exacerbation, mean age of 11. 3 years) with the following types of asthma were evaluated: mild intermitte nt (31.3%), mild persistent (36.4%), moderate persistent (29.3%) and severe persistent (3%). At the 1st visit, the mean pre-bronchodilator %PEFR was 8 7.3%. The Cronbach's alpha ranged from 0.86 to 0.95. As expected, correlati ons between the PAQLQ scores, and the Asthma Control Score (0.53-0.67), the General Health Perception (0.34-0.55), and the %PEFR (0.44-0.55) were mode rate. The PAQLQ scores remained unchanged in stable patients while increase d significantly in those showing improvements. Conclusions: After a standar d cross-cultural adaptation process, the Spanish version of the PAQLQ has s hown to be equivalent to the original, with similar internal consistency re liability, validity and sensitivity to clinical changes.