Cross cultural adaptation of Ferrans & Powers Quality of Life Index-Wound Version for use in Spain

Aim: To cross-cultural adapt the Ferrans & Powers Quality of Life Index – Wound Version (FPQLI-WV) into Spanish. Methods: FPQLI-WV was recently adapted and modified in Brazil. To proceed to its cross-cultural adaptation, the FPQLI generic version III developed in USA was translated from English to Spanish by two independent Spanish translators, fluent in both languages. The 8 wound-specific items (FPQLI-WV) were translated from Portuguese to Spanish by other two Brazilian translators, also fluent in both languages. The Spanish translations were evaluated by a Panel of 3 wound care nurses and 3 quality of life researchers to achieve a consensus. After administering the questionnaire to 6 hospitalized patients for cognitive debriefing, the new version was back-translated by 2 different independent translators (English) and 1 researcher (Portuguese).  Results:  Translation difficulty was rated as moderate for few words or expressions like “amount” and “how well” and “chances” which were modified to obtain an adequate Spanish culture equivalence. The translation difficulty was rated as high only for the qualitative descriptions of levels of importance. All the participants in the cognitive debriefing understood the Spanish version, which showed to be feasible and acceptable for Spanish wound patients. For the final Spanish version, all of the generic and wound items remained with the same meanings as the original generic and specific versions. Almost 90% agreement among experts was obtained. Conclusion: the Spanish version of the FPQLI-WH, as resulted from the cross-cultural adaptation, kept the semantic, conceptual and cultural equivalence to the American generic version, including the specific items related to wounds, according to the Brazilian wound version, also confirming its content validity. Furthermore, a study of 272 adult patients, recruited from nine Health Centers, in four Spanish Autonomous Communities, is planed to perform the evaluation of its metric properties.