Publications

Chronic spontaneous urticaria has a substantial impact on patients’ quality of life. The rst disease-speci c tool to assess quality of life impairment in this condition, the Chronic Urticaria Quality of Life Questionnaire (CU- Q2oL), was developed recently. The aim of this study was to adapt the original Italian version to the Turkish langu- age and to evaluate its reliability, validity, and sensitivity to change. The Turkish version was developed by perfor- ming forward- and back-translation. It was then applied to 140 consecutive patients with chronic spontaneous urticaria, along with the Dermatology Life Quality Index and the Skindex-29. Disease activity was assessed using the Urticaria Activity Score. Sensitivity to change was measured in 101 patients, who completed the instruments twice at intervals of 4 weeks. Con rmatory factor analy- sis demonstrated that the six-scale structure of the ori- ginal Italian version (“pruritus”, “swelling”, “impact on life activities”, “sleep problems”, “limits”, “looks”) can be retained in the Turkish instrument. Analysis regarding convergent validity showed good correlations of the Tur- kish CU-Q2oL with the other instruments. In addition, it was found to discriminate well between patients with dif- ferent levels of urticaria activity, and to be sensitive to change. In conclusion, the Turkish version of CU-Q2oL is a reliable, valid, and sensitive instrument, which will help to characterize better the clinical impact of chronic spontaneous urticaria and treatment outcomes in Tur- kish patients. Its identical scale structure to that of other CU-Q2oL instruments makes it ideal for cross-cultural comparisons and for its application in future national and multinational studies. Key words: chronic spontaneous ur- ticaria; quality of life; questionnaire; Turkish; validation.