The Spanish version of Skindex-29.
BACKGROUND
Most currently available dermatologic quality-of-life measures were originally created in English, and must be translated and adapted for use in other cultures. Our purpose was to translate and adapt culturally into Spanish a skin-related quality-of-life measure, Skindex-29, and to begin preliminary assessments of its reliability and validity.


METHODS
Transcultural adaptation and cross-sectional questionnaire studies were performed. One hundred and fourteen adult persons (patients and healthy people) responded to the Spanish version of Skindex-29. Evaluations of the semantic equivalence of back-translated items, reliability, construct validity, and content validity of the Spanish version were the main outcome measures. Comparison between Spanish and American responses was also performed.


RESULTS
Six problematic items required a second translation and back-translation to achieve satisfactory agreement with the original instrument. The final Spanish version of Skindex-29 was internally reliable (range of Cronbach alpha for the scales, 0.70-0.87). The instrument demonstrated both construct and content validity. As hypothesized, scores for dermatologic patients were higher than those for healthy persons (mean global scores 21 vs. 5, P < 0.01) and scores for patients with inflammatory diseases were higher than those for persons with isolated skin lesions (mean global scores 32 vs. 11, P < 0.01), indicating a poorer quality of life. In addition, most patients' responses to an open-ended question about their skin disease were addressed by items in the instrument. Skindex scale scores of American and Spanish respondents were similar.


CONCLUSIONS
We have developed a semantically equivalent translation of Skindex-29 into Spanish. Our preliminary evaluation of its measurement properties suggests that it is a reliable and valid measure of the effects of skin disease on the quality of life in Spanish patients.
Jones-Caballero
M
M
Ambulatorio Hermanos Sangro, Area 1 de Salud de Madrid, Department of Dermatology, Hospital Universitario de la Princesa, Madrid, Spain. derma@hup.es
Peñas
P F
PF
García-Díez
A
A
Badía
X
X
Chren
M M
MM
D000328:Adult; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D011581:Psychological Tests / Q000592:standards*; D011593:Psychology, Social; D011788:Quality of Life; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012871:Skin Diseases / Q000523:psychology*; D013030:Spain; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014177:Translations