Translation and cross-cultural adaptation of the service user technology acceptability questionnaire to a Spanish version.

Abstract

Introduction and objectives: Telemedicine requires sensitivity to needs and contexts of patients. Acceptability, which is the intention or usage of technology, is a crucial aspect. SUTAQ (Service User Technology Acceptability Questionnaire) is the only questionnaire specifically designed to collect beliefs of patients about telehealth, however there is no Spanish version available to be used.

Objective: To translate and cross-culturally adapt the Service User Technology Acceptability Questionnaire to a Spanish version.

Materials and methods: An observational, cross-sectional study was designed to forward translate and synthesize the English version of SUTAQ, then to obtain a T-12 version which was back-translated to English and reviewed by an expert committee. The prefinal version was pretested after obtaining informed consent in subjects ≥18 years, with a chronic disease, using a form to evaluate fluency and comprehension of each question with a 5-point Likert scale.

Results: Minor modifications were incorporated in the T-12 version. Thirty-two subjects of 61 years old, female (65.6%), twelve or more years of study (59.4%) and hypertension (46.9%) were recruited. Fluency and understanding were mainly high in all questions with a minority who said the items were moderately understandable.

Conclusion: The Spanish version of SUTAQ was fluent and understandable for most patients, which demonstrated its consistency with the English version. This version should be further tested to demonstrate its reliability and validity in a larger sample.