Reliability of Turkish version of acne quality of life scale in patients with acne vulgaris [Akne vulgarisli hastalarda akne yaşam kalite ölç eǧinin Türkçe güvenilirlik çalişmasi]

Abstract

Background: Acne may have a negative impact on the patients' quality of life. There is no acne specific quality of life scale in Turkish. Our purpose is to translate Acne Quality of Life scale (AQOL), reliability and validity of which have been demonstrated by Gupta et. al, into Turkish and to validate the Turkish version. Material and Method: Turkish version of AQOL scale was developed by following international methodological recommendations (translation, quality control, back translation and pilot test). Turkish version was given to 120 patients attending to our outpatient acne clinic. Seventy-eight of them filled the questionnaire twice with 1 week interval; 43 filled as Turkish-Turkish, 35 filled as Turkish-English or English-Turkish. Internal consistency of the scale and test-retest reliability was measured by Cronbach alpha and Pearson's correlation analysis. Results: Internal consistency of the scale was good (Cronbach alpha = 0.84). There was a high degree of test-retest reliability (r = 0.88 for Turkish-Turkish, and r = 0.95 for Turkish-English or English-Turkish.). Conclusion: Our results demonstrate that Turkish version of AQOL scale can be used in Turkish acne patients.