• Roberta Ismael Lacerda Machado, Lais Medeiros Souto, and Eutilia Andrade Medeiros Freire.
• Universidade Federal da Paraíba, João Pessoa, PB, Brasil.
• Rev Bras Reumatol. 2014 Mar 1; 54 (2): 95-101.

IntroductionSystemic sclerosis (SSc) is a multisystem disease, autoimmune disorder characterized by a fibroblastic disfunction, with significant impact on quality of life (QoL), measured by instruments or questionnaires that usually were formulated in other languages and in different cultural contexts.ObjectiveTranslate into Brazilian Portuguese, cross cultural adaptation and assess the reliability and validity of the Systemic Sclerosis Questionnaire (SySQ).MethodologyTranslation and adaptation: into Portuguese and cross-cultural adaptation was performed in accordance with studies on questionnaire translation methodology into other languages. Reliability: it was analyzed using three interviews with different interviewers, two on the same day (interobserver) and the third within 14 days of the first assessment (intraobserver).Validity was assessed by correlating clinical and quality of life parameters with the domain scores of Sysc.Statistical Analysisa descriptive analysis of the study sample. Reproducibility was assessed using an intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). Internal consistency was assessed using Cronbach's alpha coefficient. To assess validity we used Spearman correlation coefficient. Five percent was the level of significance adopted for all statistical tests.ResultsIn the evaluation of the questionnaires, the results were similar to the original questionnaire, the internal consistency ranging between 0.73 and 0.93 for each item. The interobserver reproducibility was very good for all domains (α = 0.786 to 0.983) and intraobserver agreement was considered very good for general symptoms domain (ICC = 0.916), good for musculoskeletal symptoms domain (ICC = 0.897) and cardiopulmonary domain (ICC = 0.842) and reasonable for gastrointestinal symptoms domain (ICC = 0.686).ConclusionThe Brazilian Portuguese version of SySQ proved to be reproducible and valid for our population, using a recognized methodology for translation and cultural adaptation of questionnaires, as well as to assess the reproducibility and validity.

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