Transcultural adaptation into Spanish of the Patient empowerment in long-term conditions questionnaire

Purpose: To describe the process of translation and cultural adaptation of the Patient empowerment in long-term condition to the Spanish language. Design: Translation, cross-cultural adaptation, and pilot testing (cognitive debriefing) Location: Primary and Hospital care. Participants: Ten patients admitted to a cardiology department of a University Hospital Main measurements: 1) Direct translation, 2) conciliation and synthesis of the versions by expert panel, 3) back- translation, 4) agreement on the back-translated version with the author of the original version, 5) analysis of comprehensibility through cognitive interviews. Results: There were no differences between the direct-translated versions. The expert panel introduced changes in 23 out of the 47 items of the questionnaire. The author of the original version agreed with the version of the back-translation. In the cognitive interviews, patients reported high difficulty in one item and low difficulty in 4. Conclusions: The Spanish version of the Patient Empowerment in long-term conditions questionnaire is semantically and conceptually equivalent to the original tool. The assessment of the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the questionnaire will be carried out at a later stage.