Validation of the French version of the Wisconsin Quality of Life (WISQOL) questionnaire for patients with urolithiasis

Abstract

Introduction: The Wisconsin Stone Quality of Life (WISQOL) questionnaire has been recently developed to objectively assess QOL in patients with urolithiasis. However, French version of the questionnaire was lacking. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to develop and validate the French version of this tool.
 Methods: The French version of the WISQOL (F-WISQOL) was developed in a multi-step process involving primary translation, back-translation and pilot testing amongst a group of patients (n=12). Urolithiasis patients from two tertiary care institutions were recruited into this study and completed 3 questionnaires: Perceived Stress Scale-10, medical history form and either the WISQOL or F-WISQOL. Internal consistency was assessed using Cronbach’s α and inter-domain associations were evaluated using Spearman’s rank correlation (r). One-way ANOVA was used to compare scores from the two groups (WISQOL and F-WISQOL).
 Results: A total of 210 patients were enrolled in this study; 68 in the WISQOL group and 148 in the F-WISQOL group. Internal consistency was high for all domains in both groups (F-WISQOL: 0.924-0.970; WISQOL: 0.888-0.965). No statistically significant difference was found between the two groups’ scores. Inter-domain association, measured by Spearman correlation, was moderate to very strong between all of the domains in the F-WISQOL. Values ranged from r=0.676-0.915, with acceptable correlation between D1, D2 and D3, but weaker correlation between D4 (vitality) and the 3 other domains r=0.676-0.729.
 Conclusions: In the present study, the French version of the WISQOL questionnaire (F-WISQOL) was validated at two academic institutions.

Validation of the Italian version of Wisconsin Stone Quality Of Life (WISQOL). A prospective Italian Multicentric Study

“…Consistently with previous works [10,12,13] we found a moderate correlation between the vitality domain (D4) and the emotional domain (D2) at 3-months follow up (Spearman's rho correlation coe cient = 0.497), but not at preoperative and 30-days post-operative questionnaires. The reason for these ndings remains to be clari ed.…”

“…IT-WISQOL showed satisfactory validation results, with an excellent internal consistency across all domains (α ≥ 0.88), particularly when the total score is considered (α = 0.960). Similar results were also found with the original WISQOL [10] and the French version [13], both with a total score α = 0.970. The test-retest reliability showed good values for each domain, and excellent results for the total questionnaire (Pearson correlation value for total score: 0.85) (Table 1).…”

“…Patients' HRQOL was found to be decreased, particularly with respect to their physical and mental states [5,6,[23][24][25]. Penniston et al [7,10] developed a stone-speci c questionnaire, the WISQOL, with robust psychometric properties, which has been already translated and validated in different languages [11][12][13][14][15]. Worldwide, we are observing an increasing interest in publishing high quality papers on urolithiasis.…”

“…Previous studies validating different language versions of the questionnaire documented a Spearman's rank correlation between WISQOL and SF-36v2 varying between 0.5 to 0.7 [10,[12][13][14]. Expecting similar results, considering a 95% Fisher con dence interval, a sample size population of about 150-200 patients was calculated to obtain adequate results.…”

“…The WISQOL has already been translated and validated in different languages i.e. Spanish, Turkish, Korean, French and German [11][12][13][14][15], but an Italian version hasn't been developed and tested yet.…”