Cross cultural adaptation and validation of the turkish version of "the assessment of knowledge in ankylosing spondylitis patients by a self administered questionnaire"

Objective: The aim of this study was to culturally adapt and validate "The assessment of knowledge in ankylosing spondylitis patients by a selfadministered questionnaire" for the Turkish population with ankylosing spondylitis. The development of a Turkish version of this questionnaire is based on the need to assess the information about the AS patients' situation and to minimize the negative impact of the AS on the quality of life and the socioeconomic impact of the country at the same time. Method: We performed forward (into Turkish) and backward translation of the 'The assessment of knowledge in ankylosing spondylitis patients by a self administered questionnaire'. Reliability was evaluated by test–retest reliability and internal consistency analysis (ICC). At the same time, the cronbach-α coefficient was used for reliability of the scale. Validity study was carried out by construct validity including correlation analysis between questionnaire scores and age, gender, education status, BASFI, BASDAI, ASQoL. Results: The Turkish 'The assessment of knowledge in ankylosing spondylitis patients by a self administered questionnaire' was showed good reliability because Cronbach α values were more than 0.70, ICC values were also more than 0.9. There was a significant correlation between education level. However, we could not find any relation between the questionnaire and the other parameters. On the other hand, some scales was related with some domains of the questionnaire. Conclusions: Results of this study indicate that the Turkish 'The assessment of knowledge in ankylosing spondylitis patients by a self administered questionnaire' appears to be reliable for use in our patients. However, due to fact that the lack of significant correlations in the most of domains of the questionnaire and the other parameters, its validity process was not admitted as satisfactory as realibility results. In the results, the acceptability of the questionnaire was not satisfactory. Nevertheless, these results should be confirmed by further studies in the big populations and for patients who are members of AS groups or who have participated in AS training programs, and for evaluating their income levels.