Cultural adaptation of the pharmacy services questionnaire (PSQ) to the context of Angola.

Abstract

Introduction: Community pharmacies have been essential in primary health care globally, especially in common health conditions. During the Covid-19 pandemic, it played an important role in rapid testing, managing patients with symptoms, and providing essential medications. This study aims to carry out a cross-cultural adaptation of the Pharmacy Services Questionnaire to obtain a version adapted for use in Angola, ensuring semantic, item, conceptual and operational equivalences between the two versions.

Method: The study followed guidelines established in the literature for the cross-cultural adaptation of the instrument. This is a methodological study with a pretesting phase, carried out with a total of 40 participants, being 10 in the adaptation phase and 30 in the pretesting phase. Ten pharmacies were selected by convenience in three cities, Malanje, Cuanza Norte and Luanda in Angola, where data were collected with users selected according to education levels. The process of cultural adaptation was carried out in four stages: 1^st. Translation of Pharmacy Services Questionnaire items, 2^nd. Back-translation of the items, 3^rd Comparison of the original versions, translated and back-translated by a committee of judges and 4^th. Pretesting.

Results: In phases 1, 2 and 3, 10 professionals with higher education were included and in phase 4, 30 users selected according to complete levels of education, 6 with higher education, 6 with high school, 6 with secondary education, 6 with primary education and 6 illiterates. Based on the analysis of responses from the DISABKIDS General Sheet, the feedback from participants suggests a high level of satisfaction with the questionnaire. The majority found it clear and easy to understand, and most considered the questions relevant and important. These findings indicate that the Angolan version of the questionnaire (PSQ-A) has been well-received and appears to be suitable for continued use in this context.

Conclusions: The Angolan version of the Pharmacy Services Questionnaire was called the Questionnaire on Pharmacy Services (PSQ-A) and showed conceptual, item, semantic and operational equivalence. To ensure the equivalence of PSQ-A measures, a study on psychometric properties will be addressed in the future when policymakers and service providers have information on the performance of pharmaceutical services from the patient's perspective.