Translation, Adaptation and Initial Validation of Food Allergy Quality of Life Questionnaire: Child form in Greek

Abstract

The aim of the study is to determine the reliability and validity of the Greek version of the Food Allergy Quality of life Questionnaire-Child Form (FAQLQ-CF). After linguistic validation, the Greek FAQLQ-CF, Food Allergy Independent Measure (FAIM) and Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL™) were used by a physician to interview children diagnosed with food allergy and aged 8-12 via telephone. Cronbach's alpha was used to evaluate reliability, and factor analysis to assess construct validity. The correlation between FAQLQ-CF and FAIM was moderate (rho=0.509, P<0.001) and internal consistency was strong (Cronbach's alpha 0.905). FAQLQ-CF discriminated well each question's contribution to children's quality of life deterioration (32-80%), each child's quality of life (17-89%), children differing in doing things with others (total score 3.55 vs 2.57, difference =0.98 > minimal clinical importance difference = 0.5; P<0.001), but not children differing in reporting anaphylaxis. The total FAQLQ-CF score correlated with the total PedsQL™ score and with the score of one of PedsQL™ subscales, demonstrating convergent validity. Factor analysis uncovered an underlying structure of four factors, explaining 50% of the variance. We can conclude that Greek FAQLQ-CF is a reliable, valid, discriminant tool for interviewing food allergic children aged 8-12, detecting those in need for immediate care.

Keywords: Child; food hypersensitivity; quality of life; questionnaires; validation.