[Cultural adaptation into Spanish of the Airways Questionnaire 20, a short health-related quality-of-life questionnaire for the clinical evaluation of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease].

Background And Objectives: The routine use of health-related quality-of-life questionnaires in patients with chronic respiratory disease is limited due to the time required to complete them. The Airways Questionnaire 20 (AQ20) contains 20 easy-to-answer questions, making it ideal for use in routine practice. However, a Spanish version is not available. Our aim was to create a version of the AQ20 for use in Spain that would be equivalent to the original English questionnaire.

Method: The original questionnaire was adapted using the translation-backtranslation method. We evaluated the conceptual equivalence of the translation to the original questionnaire, classifying items as type A if they were fully equivalent, type B if they contained questionable wording, and type C if there were doubts about their equivalence. The items in categories B and C were re-examined by the researchers and translators, with input from the author of the original questionnaire and a group of patients. The final version was piloted among 30 patients.

Results: Low difficulty ratings were given to both the translation (3.45) and backtranslation (3.52). Sixty-five percent of the backtranslated items were considered to be fully equivalent to the original English items (type A), 15% were classified as type B, and 20% as type C. The final Spanish version, produced after discussion of items B and C, was administered to 15 patients with asthma (66% women; mean [SD] age, 53.13 [19.6] y) and 15 patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (13% women; mean age, 67.8 [8.94] y). A Cronbach alpha of 0.92 was obtained.

Conclusion: The adaptation process produced a Spanish questionnaire that is conceptually equivalent to the English original, easy to understand, and satisfactory in terms of internal consistency.