Validation of the FACT-Gastric cancer quality of life questionnaire for use in Spanish-speaking countries

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to validate a universal Spanish translation of the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Gastric Cancer (FACT-Ga; Version 4) questionnaire for use in Spanish-speaking countries. Methods: Translation of the FACT-Ga from English to Spanish was accomplished by employing the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy (FACIT) translation methodology, which utilizes a multinational team of translation experts. A single (universal) Spanish version of the questionnaire was developed for use with gastric cancer patients recruited from Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Peru, and Spain. Pretesting of the questionnaire was conducted using 75 cancer patients (15 from each country), who were also cognitively debriefed. Results: Statistical analysis yielded marginal results for the Peru and Spain samples, although when analyzing pooled data from all five countries, statistics were within expected ranges. Qualitative analysis indicated that there were negligible linguistic concerns that impacted a very small proportion of the items. Conclusion: The universal Spanish FACT-Ga demonstrates content and linguistic validity, and is conceptually equivalent to its English source. It is a promising tool for use in evaluating the health-related quality of life for Spanish-speaking patients with gastrointestinal-related cancers, given more research regarding universally derived reliability and validity statistics. Copyright (C) 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.