Objective:
translating the Venous leg ulcer quality of life questionnaire (VLU-QoL), and culturally adapting it to Brazilian Portuguese and validate it with patients at the Hospital das Clínicas of the Botucatu Medical School - Unesp.
Methods:
the questionnaire was translated by a professional translator and two dermatologists specialized in the area of venous ulcers (VU), reformulated in a meeting of the three translators. The construct (VLU-QoL-Br) was submitted to pre-interviews with ten VU patients for adaptation of the language. Subsequently, it was applied to patients at the HC-Unesp, and for test-retest reliability for verification of its reproducibility.
Results:
82 patients were evaluated, with 56 (68%) women. The age average was 67.3 years. The questionnaire was translated, adapted and applied to the patients. The construct presented high internal consistency (alpha = 0.94) and adequate item-total correlation. When the 32 retests were evaluated, an intra-class correlation was noted for concordance of 0.78 (p<0.01), indicating good reproducibility of the construct. The confirmatory factor analysis corroborated the dimensions of the original questionnaire: activities, psychologies, and symptoms. VLU-QoL-Br scores were associated, independently, to the total area of the ulcers and a lower education level of the subjects (p<0.01).
Conclusion:
the translation, adaptation and validation of the VLU-QoL-Br questionnaire were concluded, demonstrating good psychometric performance, and enabling its clinical use in Brazil. It is important to evaluate its performance in other regions and different samples of individuals.
leg ulcer; venous insufficiency; varicose ulcer; quality of life; validation studies
