Autoimmune bullous disorders (AIBD) covers a wide variety of diseases. Like other dermatological diseases, health quality of life (HQoL) information is seen as increasingly important in documenting therapeutic outcomes of AIBD. In recent years, the Autoimmune Bullous Disease Quality of Life (ABQOL) and The Treatment of Autoimmune Bullous Disease and Quality of Life (TABQOL) questionnaires, which are specific HQoL questionnaires for AIBD, were developed in Australia.
The aim of this study was to validate the Turkish version of the ABQOL and TABQOL questionnaires, assess the reliability of these questionnaires in Turkish population.
The Turkish version of the ABQOL and TABQOL questionnaires were produced by forward-backward translation and cross-cultural adaptation of the original English version. We enrolled 68 patients who attended the Department of Dermatology and Venereology (the tertiary referral centre for AIBD in Turkey), fulfilled the criteria and were willing to participate in the study signing the consent form. The patients were requested to complete ABQOL and TABQOL questionnaires on day 0 and after 5–7 days for a second time sent by post. Furthermore, patients also filled out other health-quality of life scales [The Dermatology Life Quality Index, the Short Form-36, Perceived Health Status and The General Health Questionnaire-12], which are commonly used in dermatological diseases, on day 0 to evaluate their correlation with the ABQOL and TABQOL.
Both the Turkish version of the questionnaires have a high internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha coefficient, 0.88 for TABQOL and 0.86 for ABQOL) and test-retest reliability (the intraclass correlation coefficient, 0.872 for ABQOL and 0.879 for TABQOL). The correlation between ABQOL and TABQOL (total scores) is a Pearson R value of 0.609.
We have shown that the Turkish version of ABQOL and TABQOL questionnaires are valid and reliable instruments. They can be used to measure treatment burden in Turkish AIBD patients.