This study translated and validated Bulpitt and Fletcher's Specific Questionnaire for Quality of Life Assessment of hypertensive patients. The translation and the back-translation were performed by four English teachers, and the final version was submitted to a board of referees. Questions with a Content Validity Index lower than 80% were modified and re-evaluated. The questionnaire was applied in 110 hypertensive outpatients (52 ± 8 years old, 65 % female, blood pressure 128 ± 17/75 ± 13 mmHg), which also answered the SF-36, and also in 20 normotensive people, whose characteristics were similar to those of the hypertensive subjects. The domains of SF-36 and Bulpitt and Fletcher's instrument correlated to each other (p < 0.05), except for the social aspects (r=0.07, p= 0.04) and the general state of health (r=0.04, p= 0.61). Hypertensive patients showed more positive responses to the symptoms (40%) than the normotensives (15%). The instrument was validated and is now ready to be used in our midst.
Quality of life; Hypertension; Reproducibility of results; Validation studies