Validity and reliability of the Dutch adaptation of the Psoriatic Arthritis Quality of Life (PsAQoL) Questionnaire.

OBJECTIVE: The Psoriatic Arthritis Quality of Life (PsAQoL) questionnaire is a disease- specific instrument developed to measure quality of life (QoL) in patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA). The aim of this study was to translate the measure into Dutch and to determine its psychometric properties.

METHOD: Translation of the original English PsAQoL into Dutch was performed by bilingual and lay panel. Ten field-test interviews with PsA patients were performed to assess face and content validity. In total, 211 PsA patients were included in a test-retest postal survey to investigate the reliability and construct validity of the Dutch adaptation of the PsAQoL. The PsAQoL, Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ) and Skindex-17 were administered on two different occasions approximately two weeks apart.

RESULTS: The Dutch version of the PsAQoL was found to be relevant, understandable and easy to complete in only a few minutes. It correlated as expected with the HAQ (Spearman's ρ = 0.72) and the 2 subscales of the Skindex-17 (ρ = 0.40 for the psychosocial and ρ = 0.46 for the symptom scale). Furthermore, the measure had good internal consistency (Cronbach's α = 0.92) and test-retest reliability (ρ = 0.89). The PsAQoL was able to define groups of patients based on self-reported general health status, self-reported severity of PsA and flare of arthritis. Duration of PsA did not influence PsAQoL scores.

CONCLUSIONS: The Dutch version of the PsAQoL is a valid and reliable questionnaire suitable for use in clinical or research settings to asses PsA-specific QoL.