The Portuguese Version, Cross-Cultural Adaptation and Validation of Specific Quality-of-Life Questionnaire- AQUAREL- for Pacemaker Patients

To translate, to make the cultural adaptation and to evaluate reproducibility and validity of the Portuguese version of the AQUAREL (Assessment of QUAlity of life and RELated events) questionnaire, which is a specifi c tool to assess quality of life in pacemaker patients. METHODS We evaluated 202 pacemaker patients: 63 patients during the cross-cultural adaptation stage and 139 during the reproducibility and validity evaluation stages. The questionnaire translation was reviewed repeatedly until ≥85 % of patients correctly understood the questions. Reproducibility of the fi nal version was tested in 69 patients in whom the interview was performed twice by the same researcher. Validity was checked by the correlation between scores obtained in AQUAREL domains and those obtained in SF36 domains, in the functional class and the distance walked in the six-minute test. RESULTS The internal consistency of AQUAREL was adequate, with Cronbach’s alpha coeffi cient varying between 0.59 and 0.85. Reproducibility was good, with high correlation coeffi cients (0.68-0.89) and random distribution of data in Bland and Altman plots, without systematic bias. A signifi cant association was observed among AQUAREL domains and those obtained in SF36 domains and the functional class (p<0.01), although significant correlations with the distance walked in the six-minute test were not found. CONCLUSION The Portuguese version of the AQUAREL questionnaire is easy and rapid to apply, and could be used as a specifi c questionnaire to assess quality of life in pacemaker patients