The Severe Heart Failure Questionnaire: Italian translation and linguistic validation.
BACKGROUND
The quality of life (QoL) is an important outcome indicator for heart failure management. As the use of a validate questionnaire in a different cultural context can affect data interpretation our main objective is the Italian translation and linguistic validation of the Severe Heart Failure Questionnaire (SHF) and its comparison with the MLHF (Minnesota Living with Heart Failure) Questionnaire.


METHODS
The SHF and "The Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Questionnaire" were translated. A consensus involving parallel back-translations was established among a group of cardiologists, psychologists and biostatisticians. SHF and MLHF were both administrated to a sample of 50 patients.


RESULTS
The patients' median age was 63 years. Ace inhibitors therapy was administered in 88% of cases and betablockers in 56% of cases. Finally the Italian version of SHF correlates well with MLHF for all domains, except life satisfaction SHF domain.


CONCLUSIONS
The Italian version of the SHF correlates well with MLHF for almost all domains and it represents a valid alternative for quality of life assessment in heart failure patients.
Department of Statistics and Applied Mathematics, University of Turin, Italy.
C
C
Scarinzi
P
P
Berchialla
M
M
Ghidina
P
P
Rozbowsky
L
L
Pilotto
M C
MC
Albanese
P M
PM
Fioretti
D
D
Gregori
D000368:Aged; D000806:Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme Inhibitors / Q000627:therapeutic use; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006333:Heart Failure / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D008037:Linguistics; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011788:Quality of Life; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*; D014177:Translations; D044465:White People
D000806:Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme Inhibitors