Cross cultural validation of a short-form of the Vitiligo Impact Patient scale (VIPs).

BACKGROUND: there is a lack for short forms questionnaire evaluating the burden of Vitiligo according to skin phototype OBJECTIVE: To develop and validate a 12-item short-form of the Vitiligo Impact Patient Scale (VIPs) that takes into account skin phototype.

METHODS: Multicentric, prospective, cross-sectionnal study conducted in France (Créteil and Bordeaux) and the US (Worcester, Massachusetts and Dallas, Texas).

RESULTS: In total, 891 patients completed the questionnaire. Of these, 509 patients belonged to the French development sample, i.e. 313 with dark skin (DS) (phototype IV to VI) and 196 with fair skin (FS) (phototype I to III). The American validation sample comprised 382 patients, i.e. 113 DS and 269 FS. There was a very high correlation between VIPs-FS and its 12-item short form, VIPs-12-FS, in both the development and validation samples (respectively rho=0.96, pvalue <0.0001 and rho=0.98, pvalue <0.0001). Similarly, the correlations between VIPs-DS and the short form, VIPs-12-DS, in both the development and validation samples were very high (respectively rho=0.95, pvalue <0.0001 and rho=0.96, pvalue <0.0001).

LIMITATIONS: Responsiveness of the 12-item short forms should be confirmed CONCLUSIONS: These data enabled the development and validation of 12-item short forms of the VIPs questionnaires for fair (VIPs-12-FS) and dark (VIPs-12-DS) skin.