King’s Sarcoidosis Questionnaire translated into Dutch

Did you know that international collaboration is of immense importance in the field of healthcare? By working together, different countries can help each other in optimizing specific aspects of medicine. A good example of this is the recent Dutch translation of an English sarcoidosis questionnaire. By translating the questionnaire, the Dutch researchers contributed to the availability of this important document. 

It's important to assess the well-being of patients

Sarcoidosis is a systemic inflammatory disease that can affect any organ, but is most often (at least partly) localized in the lungs. In sarcoidosis, abnormal collections of inflammatory cells form lumps in the lungs, which makes it difficult to breath. With disease like sarcoidosis, it's important to assess the well-being of patients my measuring the 'quality of life' (QOL). By measuring the QOL, doctors and researchers can get an idea of the way a disease is affecting someone's life. The outcomes of QOL-tests can be used for example to compare different treatments, or to investigate how patients respond to different forms of medication. 

Until now the KSQ questionnaire was not available in languages other than English. Therefore, Mirjam van Manen (University Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands) and colleagues translated the questionnaire from English to Dutch following international guidelines. 

During translation in Dutch and in the patient interviews, there was no major cultural difference noted and the questionnaire was considered comprehensible and relevant by Dutch patients. The KSQ was also validated in a Dutch cohort by the researchers. Their study demonstrates a good construct validity of the Dutch KSQ General Health Status module against another QOL-questionnaire, called the 'WHO Quality of Life-BREF questionnaire'. The researchers think that the availability of the KSQ in other languages could facilitate international collaboration aiming at measuring, comparing and improving health status in patients with sarcoidosis.

Reference
Van Manen MJG, Wapenaar M, Strookappe B, et al. Validation of the King’s Sarcoidosis Questionnaire (KSQ) in a Dutch sarcoidosis population. Vasc Diffuse Lung Dis 2016; 33: 75-82)