title: Developing the Polish Educational Needs Assessment Tool (Pol-ENAT) in rheumatoid arthritis and systemic sclerosis: a cross-cultural validation study using Rasch analysis.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To undertake cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the educational needs assessment tool (ENAT) for use with people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and systemic sclerosis (SSc) in Poland.
  
  
  METHODS
  The study involved two main phases: (1) cross-cultural adaptation of the ENAT from English into Polish and (2) Cross-cultural validation of Polish Educational Needs Assessment Tool (Pol-ENAT). The first phase followed an established process of cross-cultural adaptation of self-report measures. The second phase involved completion of the Pol-ENAT by patients and subjecting the data to Rasch analysis to assess the construct validity, unidimensionality, internal consistency and cross-cultural invariance.
  
  
  RESULTS
  An adequate conceptual equivalence was achieved following the adaptation process. The dataset for validation comprised a total of 278 patients, 237 (85.3 %) of which were female. In each disease group (145, RA and 133, SSc), the 7 domains of the Pol-ENAT were found to fit the Rasch model, X (2)(df) = 16.953(14), p = 0.259 and 8.132(14), p = 0.882 for RA and SSc, respectively. Internal consistency of the Pol-ENAT was high (patient separation index = 0.85 and 0.89 for SSc and RA, respectively), and unidimensionality was confirmed. Cross-cultural differential item functioning (DIF) was detected in some subscales, and DIF-adjusted conversion tables were calibrated to enable cross-cultural comparison of data between Poland and the UK.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Using a standard process in cross-cultural adaptation, conceptual equivalence was achieved between the original (UK) ENAT and the adapted Pol-ENAT. Fit to the Rasch model, confirmed that the construct validity, unidimensionality and internal consistency of the ENAT have been preserved.
authors.affiliation: Department of Integrated Medical Care, Medical University of Bialystok, Białystok, Poland.
authors.forename: Matylda
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sierakowska
authors.forename: Stanisław
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sierakowski
authors.forename: Justyna
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sierakowska
authors.forename: Mike
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Horton
authors.forename: Mwidimi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ndosi
mesh_terms: D001172:Arthritis, Rheumatoid; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D020380:Needs Assessment; D010353:Patient Education as Topic; D011044:Poland; D011788:Quality of Life; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012595:Scleroderma, Systemic; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires