Patient-validated content of a Greek version of the Quality of Life in Epilepsy Inventory (QOLIE-89) combined with individualized measures

Purpose. The goal of this study was to determine the content validity of a Greek version of the Quality of Life in Epilepsy Inventory (QOLIE-89) and to investigate whether it can be developed in combination with individualized measures to assess the health-related needs of the individual patient with epilepsy in Cyprus. Methods. The QOLIE-89 was translated into Greek and combined with individualized validation measures. The instrument was administered to 44 adult outpatients receiving medication for epilepsy. They were asked to evaluate the clarity and appropriateness of the QOLIE-89 content and the accuracy of their scores, and to report their quality-of-life-related concerns. Reported concerns were compared with the QOLIE-89 scores and content. Results. The majority of participants (92.9%) endorsed the representativeness of the assessment. Quality-of-life (QoL) overall scores correlated significantly with satisfaction with QoL. Twenty-seven (30.3%) QOLIE-89 items were deemed unclear or difficult to answer and 13 items (14.6%) were deemed not relevant or inappropriate by greater than or equal to7.1% (N = 3) of patients. At least 7.1% of participants disagreed that their scores were representative of their self-perceived QoL, on 23 items (25.8%). Participants reported 33 QoL-related concerns, of which nearly a quarter were not addressed in the original QOLIE-89. Correlations of QOLIE-89 domains with content-related concerns ranged from phi = 0.43 to phi = 0.85 (P < 0.01), lower correlations coinciding with the scale content that was criticized. Conclusions. Patients were able to use superimposed measures to evaluate the content of QOLIE-89 and identified areas that could be incorporated into an instrument for the determination of patients' individual QoL-related concerns. (C) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.