Cultural adaptation of DISABKIDS® Arthritis for brazilian children and adolescents.

Abstract

Introduction: In the last decade, great emphasis has been given to incorporate the values and perceptions of patients about their health status, and several instruments to measure quality of life have been developed for this purpose. Objective: To adapt culturally, to Brazil, DISABKIDS® Arthritis Module. Methods: This study takes a methodology being developed with Brazilian children and adolescents, aged between 8 and 18 years old with Arthritis and their parents or caregivers. Data will be collected in the rheumatology clinic of the Ribeirão Preto´s Hospital Medical School of University of São Paulo. With the objective to harmonize the technical translation between the countries participating in the project, guidelines were established following an international standard for translation of questionnaires. For the semantic validation 18 children and adolescents and their parents or caregivers will be considered, following the methodology of the European DISABKIDS Group. Besides DISABKIDS® Arthritis Module, the General Impressions Form and the Specific Form, released by the DISABKIDS group, will also be used. It will help in the stages of cultural adaptation and validation. The description and analysis of results will be made using the program Statistical Package for Social Sciences, SPSS, version 17.0. The technique of double entry of data for validation will be used. Ethical Aspects: The project should be sent to the Ethics Committee in Research of the Ribeirão Preto´s Hospital Medical School of University of São Paulo, after the translation and back translation process have been done.Keywords: Quality of life; child; adolescent; arthritis; questionnaire; translation.