Transcultural adaptation to spanish of a specific questionnaire of quality of life in patients with tracheostomy

Introduction: Tracheostomy is one of the most frequently performed surgical procedures in the world. In Europe, be-tween 1.3% and 10% of patients hospitalized in Critical Units undergo a tracheostomy. The tracheostomy causes physical, functional, psychological, social, economic and work chang-es in the life of the individual that affect her quality of life. The Tracheostomy Specific Quality Of Life (TQOL) question-naire is a valid and reliable tool for its measurement. Objec-tive: To adapt to the Spanish culture and language a specific questionnaire to evaluate the quality of life of patients with tracheostomy and to measure its content validity. Method: A cross-cultural adaptation from English to Span-ish was carried out by means of the translation-back -trans-lation process of the questionnaire followed by a content validity check by a panel of experts. Results: The TQOL items did not present translation prob-lems, semantic changes were introduced, the back trans-lation being equivalent to the original. All items obtained a content validity index greater than 0.80, with the scale's global content validity index (S-CVI) of 0.98. The pilot study showed adequate comprehensibility of the instrument. Conclusions: A version adapted to Spanish of the TQOL has been obtained, linguistically equivalent to the original questionnaire to evaluate the quality of life in patients with tracheostomy.