[Spanish version of the TNO-AZL preschool children quality of life questionnaire (TAPQOL)]

Abstract

Objectives: To obtain a Spanish version of the TNO-AZL Preschool Children Quality of Life Questionnaire (TAPQOL) that would be both semantically and culturally equivalent to the original.

Material and methods: The TAPQOL questionnaire was designed to measure health-related quality of life in children aged 3 months to 5 years and contains 43 questions distributed in 12 subdimensions. The Spanish version was obtained by using the forward/back-translation method with expert, bilingual translators. Cognitive debriefing interviews were carried out with the parents of healthy children and with those of children with respiratory disease.

Results: During the adaptation phase, four items were modified after input from the authors of the original version to retain the meaning of the original. At the end of the adaptation process, 37 of the 43 items were classified as A, i.e. without difficulty in the adaptation. Four mothers and two fathers participated in the cognitive debriefing interviews. Four had secondary level education, and two had university level education. Their children were aged between 16 and 60 months. The average time taken to complete the questionnaire was 13.5 minutes. No comprehension problems regarding the questionnaire's content were found, and no items were modified after this phase of the study. The mothers of children with respiratory disease considered the questions related to their children's symptoms to be appropriate.

Conclusions: The Spanish version of the TAPQOL has proven to be acceptable and culturally equivalent to the original version. Future studies should investigate the psychometric properties of this questionnaire and compare them with those of the original version.