Abstract

Background. Health related quality of life (HRQOL) measures are increasingly used in research and clinical practice. The KIDSCREEN is a questionnaire developed in Europe for an 8 to 18 year-old population. Objective. To cross-culturally adapt this questionnaire for the Argentinean population, and to evaluate its cultural adequacy and semantic equivalence against the original version. Methods. Forward and backward translation according to international recommendations for cross-cultural adaptation of questionnaires, including the translation by professional linguists, cognitive interviews with people of different ages, gender and socioeconomic status to analyze cultural adequacy, and comparison of the Argentinean with the original versions to establish semantic equivalence. Results. The language required adaptation in the use of pronouns and verb tenses. Most of the items were considered to have low translation difficulty and high semantic equivalence. Boys and girls 8-11 years (n=7), 12-15 years (n=7), and 16-18 years (n=2) participated in the interviews, as well as 6 mothers. There were no major difficulties in understanding, but younger children being in the lower socioeconomic status had some difficulties to answer the questionnaire. Eight questions were modified to achieve greater semantic equivalence. Conclusions. The Argentinean version of the KIDSCREEN questionnaire obtained through cross-cultural adaptation process, was equivalent to the European version. Future studies should establish its reliability and validity. it provides a useful measure of HRQOL for studies in clinical, school or community settings, with the possibility to establish international comparisons.